“Poeppel has created a story that is well thought out, well plotted, well written, and fully developed. A delightful novel that celebrates the messiness and joy to be found in real life.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“100% page-turning delight…Pull out a lawn chair and prepare to read this gleefully entertaining novel.” —Stephen McCauley, author of My Ex-Life
The award-winning, “quick-witted and razor-sharp” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six) author of Limelight and Small Admissions returns with a hilarious and heartfelt new novel about a perfectly imperfect summer of love, secrets, and second chances.
Bridget and Will have the kind of relationship that people envy: they’re loving, compatible, and completely devoted to each other. The fact that they’re strictly friends seems to get lost on nearly everyone. For three decades, they’ve nurtured their baby, the Forsyth Trio—a chamber group they created as students with their Juilliard classmate Gavin Glantz. In the intervening years, Gavin has gone on to become one of the classical music world’s reigning stars, while Bridget and Will have learned to embrace the warm reviews and smaller venues that accompany modest success.
Bridget has been dreaming of spending the summer at her well-worn Connecticut country home with her boyfriend Sterling. But her plans are upended when Sterling breaks up with her over email, her twin twenty-somethings arrive unexpectedly, and her elderly father announces he’s getting married. She concocts a plan to host her dad’s wedding on her ramshackle property, while putting the Forsyth Trio back into the spotlight. But to catch the attention of the music world, she and Will place their bets on luring back Gavin, whom they’ve both avoided ever since their stormy parting.
“In this funny, profound, and brilliantly alive novel about all the messy, wise, and wonderful chords that love can strike in our lives, Poeppel gathers together fathers and daughters, old flames and new sparks, music, writing and gardening, to explore what it really means to feel at home, and how life can open you up in ways you never saw coming” (Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author).
Genre: General Fiction
“100% page-turning delight…Pull out a lawn chair and prepare to read this gleefully entertaining novel.” —Stephen McCauley, author of My Ex-Life
The award-winning, “quick-witted and razor-sharp” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six) author of Limelight and Small Admissions returns with a hilarious and heartfelt new novel about a perfectly imperfect summer of love, secrets, and second chances.
Bridget and Will have the kind of relationship that people envy: they’re loving, compatible, and completely devoted to each other. The fact that they’re strictly friends seems to get lost on nearly everyone. For three decades, they’ve nurtured their baby, the Forsyth Trio—a chamber group they created as students with their Juilliard classmate Gavin Glantz. In the intervening years, Gavin has gone on to become one of the classical music world’s reigning stars, while Bridget and Will have learned to embrace the warm reviews and smaller venues that accompany modest success.
Bridget has been dreaming of spending the summer at her well-worn Connecticut country home with her boyfriend Sterling. But her plans are upended when Sterling breaks up with her over email, her twin twenty-somethings arrive unexpectedly, and her elderly father announces he’s getting married. She concocts a plan to host her dad’s wedding on her ramshackle property, while putting the Forsyth Trio back into the spotlight. But to catch the attention of the music world, she and Will place their bets on luring back Gavin, whom they’ve both avoided ever since their stormy parting.
“In this funny, profound, and brilliantly alive novel about all the messy, wise, and wonderful chords that love can strike in our lives, Poeppel gathers together fathers and daughters, old flames and new sparks, music, writing and gardening, to explore what it really means to feel at home, and how life can open you up in ways you never saw coming” (Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author).
Genre: General Fiction
Praise for this book
"Amy Poeppel's charming MUSICAL CHAIRS made me laugh out loud. Poeppel has a remarkable talent for creating the very best kind of mayhem. Drunken dinner parties, a runaway cat, brilliant musicians, a tattooed florist, drop dead gorgeous twins, crumbling old houses, beautiful Connecticut, secrets and lies--and finally--a wedding, the true hallmark of any delicious comedy. Reading this book was such a pleasure." - Marcy Dermansky
"In this funny, profound, and brilliantly alive novel about all the messy, wise and wonderful chords that love can strike in our lives, Poeppel gathers together fathers and daughters, old flames and new sparks, music, writing and gardening, to explore what it really means to feel at home, and how life can open you up in ways you never saw coming. Set against the backdrops of Manhattan and the Connecticut countryside, MUSICAL CHAIRS is profound, delicious and soul-stirring." - Caroline Leavitt
"What kind of writer is Amy Poeppel? Warm, generous, funny, and full of surprises. In her third novel, a large, musical family (and their many friends, lovers, and groundskeepers) assemble in the shabby chicest corner of rural Connecticut over the course of one long, hot summer. What ensues is part classical French farce, part touching family comedy, and 100% page-turning delight. Cue up some chamber music, pull out a lawn chair, and prepare to binge read this gleefully entertaining novel." - Stephen McCauley
"Full of Poeppel's signature charm and wit, MUSICAL CHAIRS is a romantic-comedy-of-errors with a smart, edgy twist on the possibilities that might be revealed in life's third act. Touching, full of humanity, and the absolute definition of 'compulsively readable'!" - Suzanne Rindell
"In this funny, profound, and brilliantly alive novel about all the messy, wise and wonderful chords that love can strike in our lives, Poeppel gathers together fathers and daughters, old flames and new sparks, music, writing and gardening, to explore what it really means to feel at home, and how life can open you up in ways you never saw coming. Set against the backdrops of Manhattan and the Connecticut countryside, MUSICAL CHAIRS is profound, delicious and soul-stirring." - Caroline Leavitt
"What kind of writer is Amy Poeppel? Warm, generous, funny, and full of surprises. In her third novel, a large, musical family (and their many friends, lovers, and groundskeepers) assemble in the shabby chicest corner of rural Connecticut over the course of one long, hot summer. What ensues is part classical French farce, part touching family comedy, and 100% page-turning delight. Cue up some chamber music, pull out a lawn chair, and prepare to binge read this gleefully entertaining novel." - Stephen McCauley
"Full of Poeppel's signature charm and wit, MUSICAL CHAIRS is a romantic-comedy-of-errors with a smart, edgy twist on the possibilities that might be revealed in life's third act. Touching, full of humanity, and the absolute definition of 'compulsively readable'!" - Suzanne Rindell
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