On the cusp of her 80th birthday, Augusta Stern is recently retired, and moving to Rallentando Springs, Florida, to live out the rest of her life basking in the sun.

Except, when she arrives she finds Irving Rivkin, the boy who broke her heart more than 60 years before.

Told in alternating time periods, we slowly put together the pieces of their lives and the events that ended a chances for happiness.

1920s Brooklyn finds Augusta living with her father, sister, and, following the death of her mother, her Great Aunt Esther. Augusta helps in her father’s pharmacy and dreams of going to pharmacy school, but is also pulled toward Esther’s unconventional methods of helping mostly women with concoctions of herbs and soups and a special pestle and mortar. Homeopathy, Augusta will later learn.

Irving is the delivery boy for the pharmacy. Without much to offer financially or in name, Irving wins Augusta’s heart with his sincerity, honesty, and kindness.

In 1987, Augusta, never married, no children, fights her curiosity about her former beau. Why did Irving suddenly marry and leave for Chicago when she expected a proposal? And is there any chance that the two star crossed lovers can spend their remaining years together?

This book is glorious - and it’s impossible to explain the beauty and genius of the story telling in this tiny space.

While it doesn’t match the heavy feeling of ATCOTD, it works within a similar tone. There are many characters, many separate storylines, many ways in which they intersect, all of it inventive, surprising, and fascinating.

I adored this book and found it hard to stop listening (audio is fantastic!). Don’t miss out on this one!

Thanks to @netgalley and @macmillianaudio for the audio ARC to listen to and review. This one comes out October 8, 2024.

Thank you to @netgalley, @stmartinspress, and @lloigman for the gifted e-book. Thank you to Macmillan Audio @macmillanaudio #MacAudio2024 for the gifted audiobook.

This enchanting tale is skillfully woven through dual timelines, transporting you from 1920s New York to 1987 Florida. Augusta's unwavering determination to pursue her passion for pharmacy, coupled with her fascination with her aunts' potion-making skills, makes her a truly compelling character. The poignant love story between Augusta and Irving unfolds seamlessly across the two timelines, keeping you hooked until the very end. The supporting characters add humor and warmth to the narrative, making it a truly delightful read.

I had the pleasure of experiencing this story through its narration, and the narrator's skillful delivery brought the characters to life in a way that truly enhanced the storytelling. Her voice and pacing were absolutely perfect.

If you're a fan of magical, heartfelt stories, I highly recommend this book! The book will be available on October 8.

This was an incredibly sweet and heartfelt book. I loved the nonlinear timeline, and the uncovering of what happened in the past. The narrator also did a fantastic job reading.

This charming story, loosely based on the life of the author’s husband’s great-grandmother, features, Augusta Stern, a nearly 80 year old, newly retired pharmacist who also learned to mix healing elixirs from her great aunt. It is a second chance romance between Augusta and Irving, the errand boy for her father’s pharmacy when they were teens. Told using dual timelines in flashbacks to 1920’s Brooklyn and in 1987 Florida, when Augusta moves to a retirement community in Florida. The story unfolds carefully, and the reader comes to root for Augusta finally getting her HEA. The author summed it up beautifully in her Author’s Note, the book teaches you that “…age doesn’t change who we are, second chances are always possible and it’s never too late to try to recapture the lost magic of our youth”.
I listened to the audio version of this novel and found the single voice actor to have a pleasing, easy to listen to voice.
4.5/5⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern is a delightful blend of romance, history, and magic, wrapped in a nicely balanced dual timeline tale. It kept me under its spell from the first magical page to the last. I highly recommend this one.

Gabra Zackman and Lynda Cohen Loigman did a fantastic job narrating the audiobook.

Thank you Lynda Cohen Loigman, St. Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

This book isn't something I would usually pick up but honestly I was very intrigued by the blurb and I even love the minimalist cover. I love that this story was told in dual timelines. You understand and get to know the characters in there past forms but also their present forms. I love the magical realism that was included in this story too. If only we could heal with actual words and soup. I love all of the characters of this story. And I love that even after many many years and decades the two main characters still found their way back to each other.

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern was absolutely perfect. I came into it a bit wary: I'm not a huge fan of magical realism or the 1920's time period. But Lynda Cohen Loigman tells her tale beautifully, and I couldn't help falling in love with Augusta (Goldie) Stern, her Great Aunt Ester, her one-time beau, Irving, and the entire cast of both her 1920's Brooklyn neighborhood and her 1980's Florida retirement community. I also learned details I never knew about prohibition business and crime practices, and the book was a stern (!) reminder of the lasting repercussions that often follow rash decisions. The novel is classified as women's fiction, but it's also a beautiful love story. I look forward to reading/listening to more from this previously unknown-to-me writer.

I loved this book so much! Great story, great characters and great narrators to bring the story to life. I really liked the dual timelines.

If you like to start your fall with some cozy, witchy reads, this is a perfect addition! We follow Augusta in two different parts of her life, in the 1920s as a teenager, and in the 1980s as a new retiree. As a teenager, Augusta’s life revolves around helping her father at his pharmacy, spending time with the shop boy Irving, and observing her great-aunt Esther, a healer from Russia. As a retiree, Augusta has found herself in the same place as Irving, after spending the 60 years in between trying to mend her heart from his abrupt departure.
I loved Augusta’s teenage storyline. As a teenager, I worked at an old-fashioned soda fountain that was in the front of our local pharmacy, with most of its features still original versions. Cohen Loigman painted such a similar, comforting environment that it was impossible not to love it. Add in Aunt Esther’s miraculous lotions, potions, and soups, and I was fully hooked.
Unfortunately, Augusta’s adult life was more stressful than anything. Instead of having any semblance of mature conversations, Augusta and her childhood friends acted even worse than they had as teenagers. Shirley and Jackie were fun reprieves, but the majority of this timeline was agonizingly slow.
Overall, this is the fall version of a beach read. It’s a quick enough read, very cozy, and has a few touches of magic.
Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the free advanced audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

This was a very sweet, heartwarming book! I liked the dual timelines and the hint of magical realism (although, I wish there had been a little more).

This story is a dual timeline plot set in a neighborhood pharmacy in Brooklyn in the 1920s and a retirement home in Florida in the 1980s. Augusta has just retired and is surprised when the retirement home her niece helped her get moved to, is the same one as the man she was in love with 60 years ago. There is an active social scene with the older adults who believe it is not too late for a second chance at love, or to find a new relationship after losing a long time love.

Augusta put her career as a pharmacist ahead of everything else and was passionate about her calling. Irving appreciates her brilliant mind and her ambition and says those are the things that make her so beautiful, which is rare at this time in history when women were not expected to work. Unfortunately, he gets mixed up with some gangsters that steer his path to propose to Augusta off course.

I encourage you to read all the way to the Author's note to hear how the ideas for the story developed and the extensive research that was conducting to bring authenticity to all the details.

Mildly implausible….but aren’t all true romance books! I’m a pharmacist and LOVED the portrayal of one trying to balance the best of medicine, homeopathy, and spirituality. My second over 4 star read of a Loigman book ❤️

“You and I have not known each other long. You have seen only my most fortunate outcomes. But do not mistake a few successes for an unblemished past.”

Omg! It wasn’t until I started to listen to this and heard the authors name that I realized that this is the author that wrote one of my favorite books ever, The Matchmaker’s Gift. I can probably just rate this now at 5 stars. 😂👏🏻

Annnd I was correct. Five (million) stars. I did not want this book to end! I could have read/listened to another 700 pages of this story with these characters. They are so real to me now that I feel like I just watched a movie. I will be thinking of them for quite awhile.

The author’s note just gives this story the exclamation point after those 5 (million) stars. I couldn’t possibly rate this book higher!

The audiobook brings these characters to life in the way that I always hope when I start a new listen. Utterly perfect, just like the book. The end gave me literal chills.

“‘But you said . . . you told me that words could heal!’ ‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes, no matter the powders or words, a person’s time on this earth must end. There is no magic any of us have that can make someone live forever.’”

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for the ARC and ALC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I liked the dual timeline, and how the two wove together. I really liked Augusta and her relationship with the aunt was something I wish would have been fleshed out a little more.

This audio is so good. The narrator is wonderful and captured each character perfectly. Well done.

This book is so good. So touching and informative. The author researched it well and added in personal aspects that are in the "author's notes." It's a love story and so so much more. It's about a woman's struggle to be accepted as a pharmacist. In a time when women were expected to stay home and have babies. To keep house. Men just weren't ready to accept that their wife would want a job.

There is also the healing/magical aspects to this story. As a female the main character, Augusta, was influenced by her aunt. After Augusta's mother died from diabetes her father brought in Esther to help him take care of his two daughters. Esther taught Augusta, whom she called Goldie, how to make potions that could cure or help in so many ailments. Esther came from Russia and learned these things from her mother. She was not accepted as a healer in her country either. Females were just not meant to help.... Right!

Augusta fell in love with a young man, Irving, but things just kept getting in the way. In his way that is. He wanted nothing more than to marry Augusta and have a long happy life together. Things were not going as expected. Then the unforgivable happened.

Sixty years go by and Augusta is on the brink of turning eighty. She's moved to a retirement facility and there she and Irving are once again reunited. She's filled with a lot of anger and he with a lot of hope. At least for a while. The two have such a past that it is apparent to the other residence that at least one is in love with the other.

You read about each character and how things happened the way they did and why. I loved Irving and Augusta. Augusta is very strong willed and angry at Irving but with good reason. She does share some of the blame for things though. She was told by her aunt not to do what she did.

This book is absolutely adorable. It told from back in the twenties and in the eighties. You learn everything about what happened before Augusta and Irving are finally back together. Face to face and possibly finding a new way to work things out. Even in their golden years could they possibly find love.

Thank you #NetGalley, #StMartinsPress, #MacMillan, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this story.

Five big stars.

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman is a dual timeline—taking place in the early 1920s, Brooklyn and 1987 in a senior living community in Florida. I thoroughly enjoy dual timelines. Its a great way to delve into great stories.

There are plenty of characters to love—Augusta and her old beau Irving, Esther, Jackie, and Shirley.. I even sort of liked Vera. The main characters really come to life and they have secrets which are eventually revealed. 

Recently retired Pharmacist, Augusta, recounts her budding relationship with her pharmacist father’s delivery boy, Irving and her memories of the aunt who raised her. Esther is Augusta's aunt with 'special knowledge' of soups, herbs, teas and potions which had healing properties, but also seemed to conjure magic.

I really enjoyed the narrator, Gabra Zackman. She did a superb job narrating all these characters.

I really tried to guess how this book was going to end. But I couldn't. I enjoyed this story immensely. I will recommend this book to everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Macmillan Audio for an early audio copy in exchange for an honest review.

The absolute sweetest story! Found myself in tears a number of times throughout. Its definitely not your typical love story and that made this book all the more unique and special.

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern is a great then-and-now telling of family and love and an it’s-never-too-late storyline. Augusta was maybe a little too stubborn and stuck for me to really embrace her as a main character (you really *never* moved on??), but I enjoyed the story nonetheless.

firstly, thank you to the publisher for an alc!

this was absolutely everything i love about reading: familial love, platonic love, romantic love, and self love. beautifully written, emotional, and of course frustrating plots that leave you satisfied at the end.

the audio narrator was fantastic.

overall, a new favorite read for 2024, and i’ll be checking out the author’s back list!

I thought this book was just lovely to read. It's historical fiction with some magical realism, and it was just a cozy and heart-warming read. A lot of romance, too, and discussions on ageism and second chances.
I thought the characters - all of them, from both timelines -, were relatable and realistic. The conclusion was just...cute. Adorable.
Oh, and funny. There are some unexpected funny moments!

It's a perfect read to people who enjoy a little magic (and potions), autumn vibes and elderly characters, all wrapped up in a dual timeline historical novel with a delightful conclusion that will put a smile on your face.
I liked this one a lot more than I expected, considering that this book is a little out of my comfort zone.

I can easily recommend this book to anyone who is into light fantasy, light magical elements and romance within a historical story.
A perfect book for this season or even the holidays.

The audiobook was great. The single narrator did a great job voicing all the characters with all the excitment and emotion required. Easily recommendable.
Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, for allowing me to listen to a free audiobook copy of this delightful novel in exchange for my honest review.