First published 2020
Charlotte Perkins writes a provocative essay for a travel contest at age seventy. She wins a Mediterranean cruise and sees her chance to bring together her three distant adult children. Lee struggles as an almost-famous actress. Cord works as a Manhattan venture capitalist but cannot find love. Regan juggles motherhood while nursing hurt feelings over Charlotte's tactless Weight Watchers gift. The family boards the Splendido Marveloso for ten days sailing from Athens to Rome to Barcelona. Charlotte remembers when her children were small and she was their whole world as a single mother. Old lovers and new romances complicate the voyage. Family secrets surface as the ship moves between sun-soaked ports. The Perkins family must face the choices that drove them apart. Four adults carry childhood wounds and adult disappointments as they navigate both literal and emotional waters together.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: Athens, Barcelona, Rome, Mediterranean
Period: 21st-century
352 pages · Hardcover · Ballantine Books