by staff writer
This month’s pick of the month from Andrea Peskind-Katz from GREAT THOUGHTS, GREAT READERS is The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman. Skip directly to the ENTRY FORM for the Book Giveaway.
What is The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern About?
The book, written in a dual timeline, flawlessly goes back and forth between 1987 and the 1920s. About to turn eighty in 1987, Augusta Stern, forced into retirement, leaves her job as a hospital pharmacist in New York. Single and not sure about her next steps, she moves to an active retirement community in Florida where she bumps into a man, Irving Rivkin, who broke her heart sixty years earlier. Irving worked as a delivery boy at her father’s pharmacy when they fell in love. We travel back to the 1920’s Brooklyn where we learn the story of Augusta, her family and her budding relationship with Irving.
When Augusta loses her mother to diabetes at age fourteen, before the discovery of insulin, her Great Aunt Esther moves into her home to help care for her and her sister. Determined to become a pharmacist like her father, Augusta struggles with the unconventional healing methods Aunt Esther practices within the community, which contrast greatly with those used by her father. Around the same time, Irving began working at the pharmacy. When he became ill with the flu and neither the advice from the doctor or medicine from the pharmacy help, Aunt Esther’s chicken soup and mysterious array of herbs and curious incantations seem to provide the cure. She also appears to successfully heal others in the community that do not respond to traditional medicine.
Torn between standard pharmacy and alternate healing, Augusta must decide if there is validity to Esther’s remedies. She eventually comes to respect Esther’s unique methods as she watches her successfully treat many people, while she works to also learn more conventional healing from her father. Augusta believes she can successfully combine the teachings of her great aunt with the traditional ways of her father as a female pharmacist to cure people’s ills.
Eighteen-year-old Augusta’s world falls apart when Irving suddenly leaves Brooklyn to marry another woman, and Esther dies. Brokenhearted and alone, Augusta goes to college to study pharmacy, and after one failed attempt with one of Aunt Esther’s elixirs, she decides to reject them altogether. Now all these years later, she is still single, cynical and very judgmental. When Augusta finds she lives in the same community as her first love she wonders if she can learn to forgive the past and forge a new path.
My Review of The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern
I am generally not a fan of “magic realism”, but I love historical fiction and strong female characters. Add in a bit of romance, ambition, friendship and family drama, and the result is a captivating story that held my interest from beginning to end.
In The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern, Loigman describes the lifestyle and atmosphere of Prohibition-era Brooklyn in realistic detail. There were gangs and shady businesspeople that impacted life greatly during this time period. There were also close bonds and friendships among neighbors and the pharmacist played an extremely influential role in the community. Additionally, Loigman touches upon the discrimination and challenges intelligent, ambitious women faced in the 1920s, exploring gender roles and expectations. The obvious bias against alternative medicine in the 1920s comes through in the story as well.
Loigman successfully weaves both timelines together seamlessly in this book to create a very enjoyable read. It’s a story about forgiveness, second chances, relationships and more. Highly recommend.
St. Martin’s Press provided me with a free advance reader copy from in exchange for my honest review from Net Galley. The opinions shared in this review are my own.
Enter Our Drawing for a Free Copy of The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern
About the Author: Lynda Cohen Loigman
About Andrea Peskind Katz from Great Thoughts, Great Readers
Andrea Peskind Katz runs Great Thoughts, Great Readers, a Book Salon presented via her private FB group where approximately 5,000 prolific readers and authors interact. To quote Robert Frost, she created her “second act” career to “unite my avocation and my vocation”. After 20 years in high-pressure sales, Andrea retired to spend time doing what she loves best: hanging with her family and reading good books.
The Love Elixer of Augusta Stern
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