Review by Booklist Review
When Augusta Stern is forced to retire from her job as a hospital pharmacist (she may have faked her age on her application), she moves to Rallentando Springs, a retirement community in Florida. There she sees Irving Rivkin, who worked as a delivery boy for her father's Brooklyn pharmacy. As the narrative alternates between the 1920s in Brooklyn and the 1980s in Florida, Loigman (The Matchmaker's Gift, 2022) slowly reveals the development of Irving and Augusta's relationship and what caused their ultimate rift. Young Augusta, her sister, and her grief-stricken father, Solomon, also contend with the arrival of Augusta's great-aunt Esther, who offers desperate residents remedies from an ancient apothecary kit that often work better than Solomon's more traditional medicines. Augusta is fascinated by both forms of healing until a fateful love-elixir concoction turns her against her aunt's ways for good. Or until she sees Irving again. Loigman presents two fully realized time lines, each full of Jewish cultural touchstones, in this charming love story that proves it's never too late for a second chance.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this poignant tale of late-in-life love, Loigman (The Matchmaker's Gift) showcases her talent for transporting readers into recent history through lovingly researched details and a touch of magical whimsy. In 1987, pharmacist Augusta Stern, reluctantly retired at nearly 80 years old, relocates from New York City to Rallentando Springs, a retirement community in Boca Raton, Fla. When she bumps into fellow resident Irving Rivkin, her father's delivery boy in the 1920s, it triggers painful memories of the courtship Irving abandoned unexpectedly. Loigman uses this renewed connection to flash back to Augusta's youth in Brooklyn with her father, her older sister, and her great-aunt Esther, who joined the family after Augusta's mother died. Her father, a respected pharmacist, looked the other way as Aunt Esther saw her own customers in their home above the pharmacy, offering chicken soup and herbal remedies, some of which magically gave users "clarity" into their desires. As the two timelines unfold, readers will hope that Augusta gains clarity herself, earning a second chance at love with the boy who got away. This is a charmer. (Oct.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An octogenarian's past comes bubbling to the surface when she begins a new chapter in her life. Growing up in 1920s Brooklyn, Augusta Stern had two heroes. First, her father, Solomon Stern, a well-respected pharmacist. Second, her great-aunt Esther, who moved in with the Sterns after Augusta's mother died and deals in medicinals in a less conventional way. Watching her great-aunt brewing healing concoctions in the kitchen in the middle of the night after seeing her father measuring out dosages and counseling patients in the back of his drugstore during the day, Augusta dreams of becoming a pharmacist herself. And she does just that, for decades, until a hospital employee figures out that Augusta, pushing 80, has doctored her records to show that she's in her 60s. Forced to retire, Augusta begrudgingly moves to a retirement community in Florida, and on her first morning there runs into the last man she ever wanted to see: Irving Rivkin, her father's former delivery boy and her first love. Irving is delighted to see Augusta, whom he lovingly/annoyingly calls by her childhood nickname, Goldie, but this feeling is certainly not mutual. The complicated history between the erstwhile lovers is slowly uncovered as Loigman alternates Augusta's present with her past. A hefty dose of theatrics bordering on the soap-operatic frequently makes the story hard to swallow. That said, Augusta and Irving's love story is charming without being saccharine, and Augusta's tongue-in-cheek wit combined with her renewed hopefulness makes her the perfect unexpected heroine for new beginnings: "Oh, how she wanted to be that woman again--a woman who, yes, had suffered losses, but whose heart had not yet been broken beyond repair." For anyone who believes in second chances. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
