Arts & Culture

Have you ever reinvented yourself — even unintentionally? Bestselling author Maria Semple’s latest novel, Go Gentle, tells the story of one woman’s midlife transformation.

Adora Hazzard, a Stoic philosopher and divorcée living in New York City, believes that she has it all figured out. She’s a working mom of a teenage daughter, she’s relishing her freedom, and she regularly meets with a group of like-minded women she refers to her “coven” — a group she assembled herself and is working to expand. Adora’s carefully curated life is going as planned until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger. She begins subverting people’s expectations — perhaps most of all her own.

Soon, her normally orderly existence is upended by adventure and risk: black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue. If that isn’t enough, secrets from her past return to visit her in the present.

Go Gentle‘s narrative raises that age-old question: In the battle between the mind and the heart, which one will win?

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