Lynda Cohen Loigman is one of my favorite authors so I have been looking forward to reading this book for months. For the first time in well over a year I finished a book in less than 24 hours (the perks to a power outage- time to read!)!
It’s 1987 and nearly 80 year old Augusta Stern has just retired from her job as a pharmacist in a hospital in NYC and at the urging of her niece she decides to move to a Senior Living Development near Boca Raton, FL. On her first morning there she is unpleasantly surprised when she runs into Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s pharmacy and who broke her heart 60 years earlier. Seeing Irving again brings up all of Augusta’s past regrets and she has to decide whether she’s ready to put her heart on the line again or if she’s done trying to find love.
This book was definitely worth the wait! There were so many laugh out loud scenes and just as many poignant ones. Mrs. Loigman takes us back to 1920’s NYC in such a wonderful and descriptive way. The way she developed each character is simply wonderful and in reading this book you feel like you are there both in 1920’s NYC and 1987 Boca Raton.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy of this. The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern hit the shelves on October 8th.