Eli Bendersky's website The book tells a story of Newland Archer, a young man living in New York in the late 19th century. He is a part of the "high society of New York", which is the main point of the story.
Newland Archer marries a woman, but doesn't feel too much for her. On the contrary, he falls in love with another woman (his wife's relative), who comes back from Europe after a broken marriage with a Polish count.
Some things in these high societies are just screwed up. The same can be noticed in "Peace and War" - in a Russian society a century earlier, but many things similar. The way people treat each other, live boring but "social" life... on one hand, the society is very conservative, on the other hand what goes under the hood won't lose to a modern telenovela. Edith Wharton's insight into the thoughts of people is very interesting, people are people and some things just never change through the ages, be it the 19th or the 21st century.
A actually liked the 2nd half of the book much more than the first - it started kinda slow, in my opinion. The ending is a little sad and somewhat unclear, just like it should be.