Robin’s Rave Reviews 2025

THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUSTA STERN by Lynda Cohen Loigman is a charming book with wide audience appeal. The author paints a nostalgic picture of Brownsville, a small neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY, in the 1920s. Augusta grows up there knowing all the locals who visit her father’s pharmacy. Dual timelines switch back and forth from Augusta’s childhood in 1920s Brooklyn to her moving into a Florida senior community in the 1980s. This book doesn’t feel like historical fiction, but through the eyes of young Augusta, we experience a different NYC than we know today, and we see women struggling with the expectations of 1920s society. I strongly recommend you check out THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUSTA STERN by Lynda Cohen Loigman.

Book Summary

Augusta grew up living above her father’s pharmacy with her sister. When their mother dies, Great Aunt Esther comes to live with them to help around the house. However, their father doesn’t appreciate when the aunt’s experience as an herbal healer conflicts with his scientific approach to healing, sometimes stealing away his customers and putting his reputation at risk.

Aunt Esther chants while creating midnight concoctions by candlelight, using a pestle with strange Hebrew letters carved in it, which adds a touch of magical realism to the story. Several of these concoctions help clients after modern medicine and doctors fail them. Augusta is learning from her father, but her aunt’s practices fascinate her as well.

Irving, the pharmacy delivery boy, is Augusta’s best friend, and later, boyfriend. When she thinks he’s about to propose, she uses one of her aunt’s potions on him with disastrous consequences. After that, Augusta swears off Esther’s ways. Augusta continues her study of medicine in pharmacy school, one of five women in her class of 200. Augusta never marries, but she practices her pharmacy skills until just before her 80th birthday.

Feeling displaced in retirement, her niece talks her into moving to an active senior community in Florida. When Augusta arrives, she’s stunned to learn Irving, the boy who broke her heart, lives there. If Augusta can take down her walls and give him a chance to explain what happened all those years ago, they just might have a second chance. Augusta needs to soften her hard edges caused by bitterness based on events sixty years ago.

My Thoughts

I loved experiencing life in Brownsville when it was more of a neighborhood than part of the huge metropolitan area of New York City, back in a time when small mom and pop boutiques and the corner pharmacy thrived.

The mix of neighborhood characters was delightful. The way the neighborhood respected Augusta’s father and how much they relied on him for medical advice and counseling was fascinating. On the flip side, I also enjoyed that Aunt Esther helped people using simple, natural ingredients after “modern” medicine failed them.

She told Augusta that where she comes from, people call a man like her an apothecary, but as a woman, she was called a witch. Like Esther, Augusta hits some walls as a woman pursuing a career as a pharmacist. I appreciated the story’s feminist point infused as an undercurrent in the story rather than the main focus.

Although the author drops hints that Augusta’s family is Jewish, I would have liked more Jewish traditions woven into the story.

The chapters that take us to Augusta’s elder years show she had a long, successful pharmaceutical career, but she never found love again after Irving. Facing him again after all this time, Augusta has to navigate the feelings she’s hidden behind walls for years and take a chance by learning the other side of the story. Although I liked the 1920s timeline better, we need to see how the story plays out with Irving years later.

It’s a sweet story, making readers who didn’t experience the 1920s feel as if they’ve truly experienced a slice of it through Augusta’s eyes.

About the Author

Lynda Cohen Loigman grew up in Longmeadow, MA. She earned degrees from Harvard College and Columbia Law School. Her debut novel, THE TWO-FAMILY HOUSE, was a USA Today bestseller and a nominee for the Goodreads 2016 Choice Awards in Historical Fiction. She has also written THE WARTIME SISTERS and THE MATCHMAKER’S GIFT. THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUSTA STERN is her fourth novel.

Consider purchasing THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUSTA STERN through this link on Bookshop.org to help support independent mom and pop bookstores. Personally, I like to support MacIntosh Books on Sanibel Island with their recovery after Hurricane Ian. (I don’t receive any commission from this. I simply want to help independent bookstores.)

If You Like…

If you like the sound of THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUSTA STERN, check out my past reviews on these recommendations: THE STORY SHE LEFT BEHIND by Patti Callahan Henry and THE LOST APOTHECARY by Sarah Penner.

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Robin’s Rave Reviews 2024

Yes! Another perfect book for your beach bag this summer! A HAPPIER LIFE by Kristy Woodson Harvey, part historical fiction, part mystery, part women’s fiction, part romance, is told in a dual timeline: present day with Keaton Smith, and in 1976 with her grandparents Rebecca “Becks” and Townsend St. James.

Summary

Keaton, a young professional in NYC, has lost her job and her condo. While she figures out her next move, her mother asks her to clear out Keaton’s grandparents’ house in Beaufort so it can be sold. Keaton knew they died in a car accident before she was born, but this is the first she’s heard of the historic house on the North Carolina seaside. Her mother and uncle have held onto the house for nearly fifty years. Keaton agrees and takes her dog Salt along for the trip. (Who doesn’t love a story with a dog? And this dog is based on Kristy’s own dog named Salt!)

Keaton isn’t prepared to walk into a 1970s time-warp. It looks like Becks and Townsend just stepped away, including dishes left on the dining room table from one of Becks’ famous dinner parties. As Keaton is adjusting to the shock, Anderson, a ten-year-old, boy pops in. He lives next door with his divorced, grumpy, hot dad, Bowen.

While Keaton struggles with the enormous cleaning job, she connects more deeply with the locals. Keaton learns that everyone knows everything in a small town, so different from NYC. She becomes friends with the Dockside Dames, a group of older women who get together every morning for coffee and gossip. Their stories of her grandparents help Keaton connect with family she never knew. Keaton sees what life could be like here. She’s faced with comparing her fast-paced, workaholic life in NYC to what small town life on the ocean with Bowen and his son could be like.

The story of her grandparents dying in a car accident begins to have some holes. Although her grandparents’ car was found submerged in the water, their bodies were never recovered. When Keaton discovers her mother and uncle have suspicions that their parents were actually murdered, Keaton better understands why they never returned to the house. But what really happened to Becks and Townsend?

We go back in time for Becks to tell her love story. Becks was disowned by her parents for marrying Townsend, the love of her life. She focuses on making life easier for others and throwing her famous dinner parties while Townsend starts his doctor practice in Beaufort. Although Becks journals all her entertaining tips for her daughter, her granddaughter Keaton is the one to find it nearly fifty years later. It helps her connect with the grandmother she never knew.

Trying to decide what to keep and what to discard from her grandparents’ life and mother’s childhood is more difficult than Keaton expected. Keaton finally convinces her mother and uncle to come look through some things and get closure. Becks and Townsend left multiple clues behind, leading the family to learn the truth of what happened to them.

My Thoughts

There’s a lot here for readers of several genres including romance, women’s fiction, and mystery. It’s a multi-generational story of family relationships and how we deal with damage done in the past. It’s about forgiveness and reconciliation, about valuing the past and the family who came before us, and about romantic love and second chances. It reinforces that we shouldn’t judge the happiness of someone else’s life because people define happiness differently. What’s right for one isn’t for another. Perhaps when you determine you’ve lived a life worth living, you’ve found true happiness.

I loved A HAPPIER LIFE by Kristy Woodson Harvey. May I suggest you purchase A HAPPIER LIFE here at Bookshop.org? This online bookstore supports mom and pop bookstores nationwide!

Kristy Woodson Harvey, author

If you like…

If this book appeals to you, check out these Kristy Woodson Harvey books I’ve previously reviewed and recommend: The Summer of Songbirds, The Wedding Veil, Under the Southern Sky, Feels Like Falling, and the whole Peachtree Bluff series.

Drop me a comment below! What are you reading that you’d recommend? Who are your favorite authors? Ask me a question about books and/or writing. I’d love to hear from you!