Julia Whelan delivers a charming, romantic listening experience set in small-town Maine. Recently finding herself single again, Laurie Sassalyn comes upon a wooden duck decoy and an old letter among the belongings of her late great-aunt, Dot. After a con artist steals the decoy, Laurie and her friends set out on a heist to get it back. When Laurie reconnects with her high school boyfriend, sparks fly. Whelan nails the snappy dialogue and captures the tension of the second-chance romance. She creates realistic characters and relationships through her dynamic range of emotions. Her performance shines in her portrayal of Laurie’s fierce independence and strength. While the novel seems a bit heavily focused on the decoy caper, the likable characters and heartwarming story offer plenty to root for. V.T.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Flying Solo: A Novel
Narrated by Julia Whelan
Linda HolmesUnabridged — 8 hours, 56 minutes
Flying Solo: A Novel
Narrated by Julia Whelan
Linda HolmesUnabridged — 8 hours, 56 minutes
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Overview
“A testament to the truth that love comes in all shapes, sizes, and situations.”-Jodi Picoult
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, PopSugar
Smarting from her recently canceled wedding and about to turn forty, Laurie Sassalyn returns to her Maine hometown of Calcasset to handle the estate of her great-aunt Dot, a spirited adventurer who lived to be ninety-three. Alongside boxes of Polaroids and pottery, a mysterious wooden duck shows up at the bottom of a cedar chest. Laurie's curiosity is piqued, especially after she finds a love letter to the never-married Dot that ends with the line “And anyway, if you're ever desperate, there are always ducks, darling.”
Laurie is told that the duck has no financial value. But after it disappears under suspicious circumstances, she feels compelled to figure out why anyone would steal a wooden duck-and why Dot kept it hidden away in the first place. Suddenly Laurie finds herself swept up in a righteous caper that has her negotiating with antiques dealers and con artists, going on after-hours dates at the local library, and reconnecting with her oldest friend and her first love. Desperate to uncover her great-aunt's secrets, Laurie must reckon with her own past and her future-and ultimately embrace her own vision of flying solo.
With a cast of unforgettable characters and a heroine you will root for from page one, Flying Solo is a wonderfully original story about growing up, coming home, and learning to make a life for yourself on your own terms.
Editorial Reviews
05/16/2022
Holmes (Evvie Drake Starts Over) serves up a sweet romance with a side of mystery in this fun page-turner. Laurie Sassalyn, having recently called off her wedding and on the cusp of her 40th birthday, returns to her Maine hometown to clean out the house of her recently deceased great-aunt Dot. Sorting through Dot’s belongings, Laurie finds a wooden duck decoy and an old letter with an inscrutable reference to ducks. She investigates the story behind the decoy with the help of a few friends, including her high school sweetheart Nick. Laurie and Nick renew their romance, but to his disappointment, Laurie has no plans to stay in town or settle down. Meanwhile, Laurie hires a man to help clean out the house, but when he finds out the duck might have a connection to a famous artist, he swindles Laurie and buys it for much less than it’s worth. After she realizes her mistake, she and her friends hatch a harebrained scheme to recover the decoy. Holmes’s colorful cast of characters pop off the page, and the sure-footed plot entertains. Readers will be eager to see what Holmes does next. (June)
A refreshing reminder that there’s no one-size-fits-all mold for a relationship, and that fulfillment can be achieved many ways.”—The Washington Post
“Linda Holmes’ sophomore novel, Flying Solo, is a near-perfect, feel-good summer escape for those of us who are not always satisfied with the traditional happily-ever-after.”—USA Today
“Flying Solo is a testament to the truth that love comes in all shapes, sizes, and situations; that being alone does not mean being lonely. And Linda Holmes creates characters and conversations so real that sometimes I wonder if she is hiding in my closet, eavesdropping.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling co-author of Wish You Were Here
“Linda Holmes has crafted another moving and tender novel full of bighearted characters, smalltown charm, and deep truths about life. Flying Solo is a perfect book for anyone who feels a little separate from the flock.”—Rebecca Serle, New York Times bestselling author of One Italian Summer
“It’s impossible to read Linda Holmes without smiling. Flying Solo has everything: life decisions, second chances, intrigue, skulduggery, and a hot librarian! I loved it.”—Clare Pooley, New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity Project
“Flying Solo is warm and comforting, like a weekend with your favorite people, sharing their funniest stories and hardest-won wisdom. After two very tough years, this lovely book is exactly what we all need.”—Kate Stayman-London, bestselling author of One to Watch
“Holmes’s sophomore novel is a wise, heartwarming story of family, unexpected romance, and shaping your own path in a world where it often feels next to impossible to do so. It’s a beautiful mystery and a tale of self-searching tied into one.”—Carola Lovering, author of Tell Me Lies
“Holmes blends humor, emotional depth, and small-town charm in this delightful story about the bonds of family and friendship, showing how even the most independent people need someone to lean on. Readers will love spending time with Laurie and her friends.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Holmes’s colorful cast of characters pop off the page, and the sure-footed plot entertains. Readers will be eager to see what Holmes does next.”—Publishers Weekly
“Charming, often hilarious . . . a delight from start to finish. Holmes has clearly done her research into how public librarians spend their time, and she also asks serious questions about how to make hard choices and live one’s life.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“A charming and easygoing look at all kinds of love and the beauty of independence, featuring supremely likable characters.”—Kirkus Reviews
★ 06/01/2022
Holmes's (host of the podcast Pop Culture Happy House) charming, often hilarious second book is set in the same small Maine town as her first (Evvie Drake Starts Over), with some of the same supporting cast. Laurie Sassalyn recently called off her wedding and is back in her hometown of Calcasset, ME, to clean out the house of her beloved late great-aunt Dot. Hidden away inside is a wooden duck decoy; Laurie has it appraised, learns that it has minimal value, and sells it to an antique dealer for $50. When she realizes the appraisal was fraudulent, she and friends both old and new plan a heist to get the decoy duck back. At the same time, Laurie is giving serious thought to the kind of life she wants to lead and the fact that it looks a lot like the life of resolutely unmarried Dot, who had plenty of friends, travel, meaningful work, extended family, and hobbies, plus an active love life well into her eighth decade. But when Laurie reconnects with her first love, Nick, who's now divorced and running the Calcasset library, it complicates her plans. VERDICT A delight from start to finish. Holmes has clearly done her research into how public librarians spend their time, and she also asks serious questions about how to make hard choices and live one's life.—Stephanie Klose
Julia Whelan delivers a charming, romantic listening experience set in small-town Maine. Recently finding herself single again, Laurie Sassalyn comes upon a wooden duck decoy and an old letter among the belongings of her late great-aunt, Dot. After a con artist steals the decoy, Laurie and her friends set out on a heist to get it back. When Laurie reconnects with her high school boyfriend, sparks fly. Whelan nails the snappy dialogue and captures the tension of the second-chance romance. She creates realistic characters and relationships through her dynamic range of emotions. Her performance shines in her portrayal of Laurie’s fierce independence and strength. While the novel seems a bit heavily focused on the decoy caper, the likable characters and heartwarming story offer plenty to root for. V.T.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
2022-04-27
A woman returns to her hometown of Calcasset, Maine, to clean out her recently deceased great-aunt’s house—but runs into a few surprises along the way.
When Laurie Sassalyn’s beloved great-aunt Dot dies at the age of 93, Laurie takes on the job of cleaning out her house. Even as a child, Laurie idolized Dot and the life she lived as a single, adventurous woman. Dot traveled, never got married, and (most important to Laurie, who grew up with four brothers and a constant stream of noise) had a silent house. Now that Laurie’s almost 40, she’s re-created Dot’s life for herself in Seattle, where she lives in peace, enjoying her job as a freelance nature writer and spending her free time with her many friends. Cleaning out Dot’s house is a big task, but Laurie thinks Dot deserves the respect of having someone go through her stuff instead of just trashing everything. Alongside the many books and boxes full of old photos, Laurie finds something surprising—a wooden duck, carefully kept in a cedar chest. Laurie can sense that this duck was important to Dot, and she enlists the help of a “bereavement declutterer” to help her discern its value. She also reconnects with librarian Nick Cooper, the high school boyfriend she dumped when she realized that he wanted to stay in Calcasset. Nick and Laurie have both changed over the years—he’s been married and divorced, and she’s broken off an engagement—but what hasn’t changed is their deep connection. Nick and Laurie grow closer as they search for answers about the mysterious duck—especially when their search leads them to what might be the world’s first wooden duck heist. As Laurie’s feelings for Nick grow, she starts to wonder if her friend June is right when she says, “You don’t have to be single to be independent. And you don’t have to be married to be loved.” As in her debut, Evvie Drake Starts Over (2019), Holmes displays a gift for warm, richly drawn characters and situations that are as cozy as a steaming cup of tea. Laurie is refreshing as a heroine who is entering her 40s, a size 18, and completely comfortable with her life as an unmarried, child-free woman. There are no dramatics or big fights between her and Nick—just a believable adult relationship with real-world obstacles.
A charming and easygoing look at all kinds of love and the beauty of independence, featuring supremely likable characters.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940176196597 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 06/14/2022 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
She could have missed the duck entirely. It was at the very bottom of the cedar chest, and in the manner of the princess and the pea and the stack of mattresses, Laurie might have ignored it if she hadn’t pulled all the blankets out to see whether any of them seemed special.
The duck was about a foot long, made of wood, and lighter than she expected when she picked it up. She couldn’t even guess how old it was, since it looked pristine, like it had barely been touched. It was without a single visible scratch, and it was worked to a finish so smooth she could make out the thinnest brushstrokes in the paint with the tips of her fingers. The colors were bright: a green head and a reddish-brown chest, a gold flush along the sides with blues and greens along the wings. Laurie stepped into the hall. “Now, why,” she said, standing with one hand on her hip and the duck in the other, “would a ninety-three-year-old woman have had a wooden duck in a chest under three afghans and a quilt?”
“To get to the other side?” June called back from the living room.
“It’s not that kind of riddle.”
Laurie walked with it out into the living room, where June was working through the books. Or some of the books. Aunt Dot had them in practically every corner, stuffed into floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves or sitting in stacks on the floor, in danger of tipping over. “I guess she had it for the same reason she has four feather boas and a signed picture of Steve McQueen.”
“Which is what?”
“She was ninety-three. Why wouldn’t there be a duck?”
Laurie took out her phone and snapped a couple of pictures of the duck from different angles to show her mother. “It’s pretty, actually. I don’t know why it wouldn’t be out somewhere you could look at it. Everything else is.”
Dot’s whole house was an extravagant display case for the fruits of her adventures. There were postcards in patterned fabric boxes, home-movie reels in bins with labels marked in ballpoint pen, and travel souvenirs that suggested impulsive shifts in Dot’s collecting philosophy. There were egg cups, spoons, and little dessert plates with scenes painted on them. She’d been to Rome, to Bangkok, to Buenos Aires and Mexico City. She’d camped in a trailer with two girlfriends in Yellowstone in the summer of 1952, and she’d wandered around China on her own in 1994, when she was in her sixties. In a photo from that trip that she must have convinced a stranger to take for her, she was next to the Great Wall, her gray hair gathered in a loose ponytail at the back of her neck. She wore a light denim jacket with a patch of Elton John’s face on the arm.
Dot had tried just about everything they taught at the community college—and kept every course catalog—and her work and supplies were stacked and stored in one of the bedrooms. Ceramics, cross-stitch, knitting, scrapbooks with stenciled titles like “Christmas 2003: Cold as Hell.” Painting, sketching, calligraphy, beaded bracelets strung on fishing line. There was a big blue plastic bin at the bottom, under all the boxes of crafts, that said in progress/unfinished. Those were destined to remain so now.
There was a small stash of love letters from some of Dot’s known boyfriends: Paul, the teacher; John, the chemist; Andrew, the journalist. There was also one without an envelope that was signed “M,” which Laurie suspected might have been from a woman, based on the handwriting. (Again: She was ninety-three. Why wouldn’t there be a woman?) Laurie set aside but did not read these, for the simple reason that she wouldn’t want anyone to read her letters after she was dead. It seemed wrong, though, to throw them away, so she’d just left them in their shoebox labeled correspondence, special and set it on the bed.
Laurie dropped onto the couch. “Take a break with me,” she said. “I finished with the jewelry box, and I cannot start a box labeled cameras and 8-track tapes without sustenance.”
“Just keep petting that duck,” June said, getting off her knees and passing Laurie on her way to the kitchen. “You want an iced tea?”
“You are the best friend in the history of best friends.”
“Laur, it’s only iced tea.”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Laurie said. “I’ve been doing this for a week and a half, and I already have scratches all over my hands from tearing boxes open and a sore shoulder for no reason I can particularly pinpoint. And I have to be here. You’re just here because you’re a good person.”
“I’ve got news for you,” June said, over the sound of ice clinking into glasses. “When you’re the one relative who shows up instead of just letting Goodwill take everything in the house, you are also a good person.”
Laurie puffed out a breath. “It made the most sense. I didn’t want everything she owned to vanish just because she didn’t get married or have kids. Nobody else had the time.”
June appeared with the drinks in two of Dot’s tall glasses, crisscrossed with a chunky diamond pattern. “I don’t know. Four brothers, and you wind up holding the bag?” she said as she sat down. “Regardless, I’m very happy to be talking to you somewhere other than FaceTime. I like seeing your beautiful face in person.”
“You’re very sweet, given how sweaty and disgusting I am, and I feel the same way. I thought I was going to see you in person at the wedding I didn’t end up having, so I’m glad I had an excuse. Honestly, it’s a particularly good time to see old friends, since everyone I know in Seattle also knows Chris, and I have no idea whether any of them likes me anymore. And even if they do, I definitely don’t want them to throw me a fortieth birthday pity party based on the assumption that I have given up my last chance at happiness and will now shrivel up like a prune.”
“Nobody thinks that,” June said, rolling her eyes.
“Tell it to When Harry Met Sally.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, do you remember the part of that movie where Harry goes over to see Sally, and she’s crying in her bathrobe because her ex-boyfriend, that guy who’s Gerald Ford’s son, is getting married?”
“That guy is Gerald Ford’s son?”
“Yes. And she starts crying, and she’s very depressed, and she says through these really pitiful tears, ‘And I’m gonna be forty.’ And he says, ‘When?,’ and she says, ‘Someday.’ That’s the first punchline. The second punchline is that he says she’s going to be forty in eight years.”
At Laurie’s expectant look, June shook her head. “I don’t get it yet. Keep going.”
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