Go Gentle

'Maria Semple is a treasure.' Los Angeles Times

The New York Times bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.

Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She s even assembled a 'coven' like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.

Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past which she has worked so hard to bury lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she ll risk everything to get it.

Adora Hazzard s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.