The jetsetters: a novel

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Author

Ward, Amanda Eyre

Publisher

Varies, see individual formats and editions

Publication Date

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Language

English

Appears on these lists

Family Gatherings
For Fans of The White Lotus Season 3
High Seas Hijinks and Adventure
Reese's Book Club

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Book Pick • Named One of the Best Beach Reads of 2020 by Parade, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Good Housekeeping“The exuberant activity aboard the Splendido Marveloso is no match for the fireworks set off as the lies explode. Full of wicked humor and delicious destination details.”—People (Book of the Week) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the Become a Jetsetter contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can’t seem to find a partner; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday. Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young, when she was a single mother who meant everything to them. When she wins the contest, the family packs their baggage—both literal and figurative—and spends ten days traveling from sun-drenched Athens through glorious Rome to tapas-laden Barcelona on an over-the-top cruise ship, the Splendido Marveloso. As lovers new and old join the adventure, long-buried secrets are revealed and old wounds are reopened, forcing the Perkins family to confront the forces that drove them apart and the defining choices of their lives. Can four lost adults find the peace they’ve been seeking by reconciling their childhood aches and coming back together? In the vein of The Nest and The Vacationers, The Jetsetters is a delicious and intelligent novel about the courage it takes to reveal our true selves, the pleasures and perils of family, and how we navigate the seas of adulthood.

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Contributors

Plummer, Thérèse Narrator
Ward, Amanda Eyre Author

ISBN

9780399181894
9781980057635
9780399181900
039918189

Appears on these lists

Family Gatherings
For Fans of The White Lotus Season 3
High Seas Hijinks and Adventure
Reese's Book Club

From the Book - First edition.

Prologue: Hilton Head Island, 1983

Baggage

Athens, Greece

Welcome aboard

Fun day at sea

Rhodes, Greece

Valetta, Malta

Sicily, Italy

Naples, Italy

Rome, Italy

Florence, Italy

Marseilles, France

Barcelona, Spain

Epilogue: 2018.

Subjects

Dysfunctional families -- Fiction
Family reunification -- Fiction
Fiction
Life change events -- Fiction
Literature
Ocean travel -- Fiction
Parent and adult child -- Fiction
Reunions -- Fiction
Single mothers -- Fiction

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Summary

Video And Music

Video Games

About The Author

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Awards and Honors

Distinctions and Honors

Reese's Book Club (2020)

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Published Reviews

Booklist Review

When Charlotte Perkins wins a Mediterranean cruise in an essay contest, she sees it as the perfect opportunity to reconnect with her adult children; beautiful actress Lee, perpetually single Cord, and perfect housewife Regan. All three are their own kinds of messed up. Lee's career has floundered and she is newly single and homeless. Cord is engaged to his boyfriend, assuring him that on this trip he will come out to his family. And Regan's husband insists on coming along, even though she needs a break from pretending their marriage isn't falling apart. And all three blame Charlotte's repressive, Catholic insistence on everything being fine, yet all three feel responsible for their widowed mother. As the Splendido Marveloso travels from Greece to Malta to Italy, the Perkins' desperate attempts to both keep up appearances and tell their truths are interrupted by port-city excursions and mandatory cruise-ship fun. Each character's dysfunctions run deep, and each plot twist threatens to sink their sanity, resulting in a funny, moving tale of the complications of familial love.--Susan Maguire Copyright 2020 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

Kirkus Book Review

A lonely 71-year-old widow wins a trip to Europe and takes her three grown children in an attempt to reconnect with them.One-time mediocre realtor and long-time widow Charlotte Perkins lives in Savannah, Georgia. When her best friend dies, she realizes just how lonely she has become and how she has lost touch with her grown children, two of whom refuse to speak to each another. Charlotte believes that her eldest daughter, Lee, is an actress on the cusp of success in Los Angeles; that her son, Cord, is a successful venture capitalist in New York City waiting to find the right woman; and that her youngest, Regan, is a happily married stay-at-home mother of two. She doesn't know that Lee is in massive debt, cannot find work, and is living in a La Quinta hotel; that Cord is a struggling-to-stay-sober alcoholic who is happily engaged to a man he adores; and that Regan dreams of murdering her detested husband, whom she regrets marrying after her sister broke his heart. Charlotte herself is not the pious Catholic church lady everyone thinks she isshe is desperate to find a man, have sex, and live out the naughty pages of her romance books. Everyone in the family is adept at hiding their emotions and themselves from one another. Charlotte hopes to bring them all together again by entering a contest for a cruise through Europe. And she wins. Author Ward (The Nearness of You, 2017, etc.) has created a complex story that explores the tragedies and long-term effects of withheld love, verbal abuse, alcoholism, and depression on individuals and their families, set against the backdrop of a splendidly gaudy, over-the-top Mediterranean cruise ship and its historic ports of call. Open, optimistic, caring, romantic, and thoughtful GiovanniCord's fianceis a highlight of the book.No one, and no relationship, is perfect in this story, which embraces the messiness of love and life. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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