The Pleasure Seekers // The Charmed Circle — Mary Howard (1)

Three girls leaving school, closely linked, yet separated by life and family environment.

Beverly Morris, dominated by her beautiful mother Flamy, a fashionable interior decorator, her father Gerald, a great star stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the onset of middle-age, and her brother Roger, just down from university, an addicted pleasure seeker.

Jessica Rubens, quiet and scholarly, daughter of a merchant banking family, aristocratic, religious, shadowed by the death of her elder brother.

Gilda Girton-Davies, whose father is facing a jail sentence for fraud and whose mother has deserted them. Gilda is a genuine delinquent with no memory of past dangers and no apprehension of future mistakes, loyal to no one. She and Roger pursue their gay and conscienceless way, flying off like brilliant butterflies when life becomes serious or unprofitable.

Deeply involved with these people are Dougal Ross, Gerald's manager, who believes in Beverley's ability as a singer, and Mark Delmont, Flamy's designer, a sensitive and serious man.