Augus­ta Stern grew up in 1920s Brook­lyn in the apart­ment above her father’s drug­store. Augus­ta and her old­er sis­ter, Bess, lost their moth­er to dia­betes just before insulin was dis­cov­ered as a cure. Augusta’s father was a phar­ma­cist, and his fail­ure to save her sick moth­er drove Augus­ta to want to learn every­thing she could about heal­ing. She plead­ed with her father to train her in all he knew.

Because he was griev­ing an immea­sur­able loss, his aunt Esther moved in to keep house, cook, and look after the girls. The girls attend­ed school and worked in the phar­ma­cy along­side two young hand­some, hard-work­ing assis­tants. Esther joined too, and soon she began dis­pens­ing pri­vate advice to des­per­ate female patients who were being ignored by their male doc­tors. Augusta’s father object­ed to this ​“takeover” and pushed Esther out of his phar­ma­cy. Nev­er­the­less, Esther’s rep­u­ta­tion and clien­tele grew quick­ly, and Augus­ta start­ed learn­ing some of her secrets.

The sto­ry switch­es back and forth between the 1920s in Brook­lyn and the sum­mer of 1987 at a retire­ment com­mu­ni­ty in Flori­da. Augus­ta has been forced to retire and sent to this new home by Bess’s daugh­ter. At first, she doesn’t know what to do with her­self, but that changes as she begins mak­ing friends, fig­ur­ing out the sched­ule of activ­i­ties, and swim­ming each day. After chance encoun­ters with two male res­i­dents who were each very dear to her dur­ing her teen years, Augusta’s life changes dramatically.

This is a fast-paced nov­el about the twists and turns on the jour­ney from youth to old age. Although the pro­tag­o­nist faces many chal­lenges, her sto­ry is full of pos­i­tiv­i­ty, teach­ing read­ers that joy and ful­fill­ment can be found at any age in any place.