The Sweet Spot

September 1, 2022

From Ad�b�yọ̀, author of the Baileys short-listed Stay with Me, A Spell of Good Things brings together two contemporary Nigerian families through the intertwined lives of a young woman doctor and a boy tending to his family after his father's death. Perennially best-selling Deveraux's Meant To Be features two sisters in 1970s Kansas who must between what they want and what is expected of them (75,000-copy first printing). Though she finally feels at home at her prestigious college in 1998, Lower East Side New Yorker Isabel Rosen still faces emotional crisis in Florin's My Last Innocent Year, moving from a nonconsensual sexual encounter to an affair with a married professor; a highly touted debut (100,000-copy first printing). In Ghanaian British George's debut, Maame, Maddie finally wrests some independence from her parents--a bossy mother forever traveling to Ghana and a father who needs caretaking--and for the first time experiences living on her own; then tragedy strikes (250,000-copy first printing). In Pulitzer Prize finalist Makkai's I Have Some Questions for You, film professor and podcaster Bodie Kane gingerly returns to teach at the New Hampshire boarding school where a classmate was murdered and begins to wonder whether justice was served in convicting the school's athletic trainer, Omar Evans. When Melinda's husband runs off with a young celebrity entrepreneur, they dump their newborn on Melinda's doorstep, and she ends up caring for the baby with friend Lauren, whose Greenwich Village brownstone houses a bar called The Sweet Spot, and bartender Olivia; from popular Musical Chairs author Poeppel. Winner of the Bristol Short Story Prize, Florida-born, London-based Tate goes full-length in Brutes, about a bunch of 13-year-old girls in swampy Falls Landing, FL, obsessed with preacher's daughter Sammy--and galvanized by her disappearance.

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November 28, 2022
In Poeppel’s fizzy latest (after Musical Chairs), a large cast finds itself in a number of messy situations. Leo Aston and Lauren Shaw are given a Greenwich Village brownstone by Leo’s father. With Lauren’s charming yet grotesque ceramics gaining traction in a local boutique and finally having enough space for their three children in the brownstone, it seems their lives are coming together. Then, Felicity Wynn, the pregnant owner of the boutique that sells Lauren’s ceramics, credits Lauren for convincing her to keep the baby and commit to his father, Russell, thus breaking up his marriage. Russell’s ex, Melinda, is forced to take an administrative job at what ends up being the school for Lauren’s children, which puts her in spitting distance of Lauren, whom she’s convinced ruined her life. The Sweet Spot, a bar in the basement of the brownstone; the bar’s hunky older bartender, Dan; and Dan’s daughter, Olivia, who has been canceled on social media for mistreating Melinda at Felicity’s store, all come to play roles in the delightful chaos that ensues. The author leans a bit too heavily on coincidences, but there’s plenty of fun to be had in this chronicle of misunderstandings and new beginnings. Readers are in for a treat. Agent: Linda Chester, Linda Chester Literary.

December 15, 2022
The lives of a disparate group of people in Manhattan's Greenwich Village unexpectedly become intertwined. A brownstone, a bar, and a baby--these create the sweet spot where the lives of a group of people intersect. In the brownstone are Lauren Shaw, a potter; her husband, Leo Aston, a professor; their three children, Charles, Harrell, and Waverly; Lauren's mother, Evelyn; and Philip, an antiques expert and Leo's gay biological father. Then there's Olivia, the children's nanny; Todd, a freelance sound engineer and Olivia's former boyfriend; Melinda, a receptionist at the children's school; Russell, Melinda's ex-husband, philanderer, real estate lawyer, and father to the aforementioned baby; Felicity, a TV home-makeover expert and mother to said baby; and Dan, Olivia's father and owner of the Sweet Spot--the bar below the brownstone. And, of course there's the baby: formally Horatio, informally Hank. Melinda, enraged by how her husband of nearly 30 years has destroyed her life by having an affair and leaving her--although the resulting destruction of her career and possessions was all her own doing--is hellbent on revenge against Russell, Felicity, and Lauren (who she has been told convinced Russell to leave her). As Melinda wreaks havoc, she causes Olivia to be fired. The story follows Melinda's efforts to destroy, her realization that revenge is not as satisfying as she'd hoped, and the way most of the group comes together to take care of the innocent caught at the center of it all--Hank. There is an engaging whirlwind of characters, an exploration of unruly and conflicting emotions, and an investigation of whether a lifelong monogamous marriage or a heteronormative family unit are the only places familial happiness lies. Staged much like a play or TV show, this is another enjoyable exploration of the messiness of life from Poeppel.

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January 1, 2023

Poeppel (Musical Chairs) writes charming, humorous stories, and this is a good one. Lauren is married with three kids living in a dilapidated brownstone in Greenwich Village with a dive bar, the Sweet Spot, in the basement. An artisan, she works at a high-end home-accessories store owned by TV home-improvement star Felicity. When Felicity casually mentions that she is having an affair with a married man and is pregnant, Lauren suggests she should chase her happiness. The next thing Lauren knows, Melinda, the now ex-wife of the baby's father, is on a rampage. Melinda fulfills nearly every scorned woman's fantasies until she realizes it doesn't make her feel any better. When a video of Melinda trashing Felicity's shop goes viral, both Lauren and Olivia, a bright young woman who works for Felicity, are collateral damage. But somehow the three women become friends. When Melinda's ex leaves the baby with her to chase Felicity across the country, Melinda gets her new friends to help out in this Shakespearean comedy of errors. VERDICT Quirky characters breathe life into this lighthearted family farce that will appeal to readers who enjoy the novels of Curtis Sittenfeld, Cathleen Schine, and Eleanor Brown.--Stacy Alesi

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2022
Coincidence reigns in Poeppel's latest (after Musical Chairs, 2020), the story of three women connected in unexpected ways. Lauren is a potter with a lucrative commission from Felicity, an influencer who wants to sell Lauren's pieces at her eponymous shop. Felicity's married lover, Russell, has just left his wife, Melinda, who is furious and desperate for revenge. Melinda makes her way to Felicity's shop looking for a confrontation, and she goads Olivia, a marketing assistant, into losing her temper, a moment that's turned into a viral video by another customer. Coincidences continue to abound--Melinda finds herself in a basement bar called the Sweet Spot, which is owned by Olivia's dad and is located in a brownstone owned by Lauren's father-in-law, and Olivia becomes Lauren's nanny so Lauren can meet Felicity's ever-increasing demands for her art. The large cast of characters would require a cheat sheet in less skilled hands, but Poeppel manages the intersecting stories so deftly that the connections between the characters seem not only natural but inevitable. This character-driven novel about a disparate group of people bound into an unusual, sprawling family will appeal to fans of Emma Straub and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney.

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