Sylvia's Second Act

A Novel

By: Hillary Yablon

Narrated by: Jane Oppenheimer

Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Her husband’s cheating on her. She hates Boca. Sylvia is mad and she isn’t going to take it anymore. She’s moving back north, to the city of her dreams—with her best friend, Evie, in tow. Think a screwball comedy featuring a sophisticated Thelma and Louise with martinis in hand . . .

When sixty-three-year-old Sylvia finds her husband in bed with the floozy of their Boca retirement community, she’s shocked and furious . . . at first. By the time her head stops spinning, Sylvia realizes that actually, this isn’t what she wants anymore anyway.

So she enlists her best friend, the glamorous older widow Evie, to join her in setting up a new life in Manhattan. Sylvia’s ex-husband may have lost her life savings, but Sylvia and Evie are scrappy and determined, unopposed to pawning jewelry and roughing it in tiny apartments. And before long, Sylvia signs on to revive her decades-old wedding planning business with a former professional rival. Sylvia has a lot to prove, and beneath it all, she can’t help but wonder: Will she ever be able to get back into the dating game?

Sylvia doesn't want to be twenty-five or thirty again. Her age gives her wisdom, experience, and perspective. A career, sex, fun, and a new romance—her entire second act is stretched out in front of her, beckoning to her. It’s her time, and watch out, world, Sylvia is coming!

©2024 Hillary Yablon (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A first-rate novel of second chances that will have you laughing right from the start. Sylvia will show you that it's never too late to reinvent yourself, especially if you have a good friend by your side and a cosmopolitan in hand." —Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Celebrants

"Sixty-something Sylvia Fisher's life needs a make-over. She's sick of retirement life in Boca Raton AND her cheating husband. Novelist Hillary Yablon gives readers hungry for a midlife romance a fizzy, delicious story we didn't know we needed. Take a bow, Sylvia, cause readers are gonna give this laugh-out-loud female buddy story made in Manhattan a standing ovation." —Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of The Homewreckers

"Sylvia’s story hit all of my favorite notes - laugh out loud funny, action packed and ultimately redemptive. It’s a love song to women of a certain age, and I’ll be humming it for years to come." —Annabel Monaghan, bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer

Love the characters!!

Love that the characters grow throughout this witty, clever story showing that life is not over once you hit 60!

loved it

Cute surprises, reactions and storyline. Was like a nice Romance comedy. I recommend this author and story!

Sequel!

Great book - now we need to know what happens in Sylvia’s third (and fourth, and fifth) act!

Loved it!

Laugh out loud funny, yet moments of poignancy. The narration is perfect! I highly recommend.

Laughing out loud

It’s has been a while since a book made me last so much. Very entertaining story and narration.

Predictable and boring

The main character lacked any real depth and was painfully shallow and vapid. Not worth the time.

interestingly boring.

I heard this book was Laugh-out-loud funny so picked it up. I chuckled twice. Thats it. fairly boring actually.