December 1, 2022
Tanner Quimby is at loose ends since she lost her soccer scholarship (and all her friends) at Northwestern because of an accident that damaged her leg. She spends the days in pajamas and playing video games on the couch in her parents' basement. When she blows up once too often at her mother, she's pushed out of the nest and into the home of Louise Wilt, a woman in her 80s who's recovering from hip surgery. Her adult children don't think she should be on her own, so they arrange for Tanner (a family friend) to move in. Thus a new odd couple is formed. But, as Tanner quickly realizes, there's more to Louise than she initially thought. When a letter from her past sends Louise on a cross-country trek, Tanner serves as her driver. Soon the FBI (and possibly some gangsters) are on their trail. VERDICT Tanner and Louise's growing bond is funny and heartwarming and gives heart to Oakley's (The Invisible Husband of Frick Island) latest, but the sharp, witty dialogue and plotting keep the story from becoming too saccharine. A great read-alike for fans of the television show Hacks.--Jane Jorgenson
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January 9, 2023
Oakley (The Invisible Husband of Frick Island) draws on Thelma and Louise for this delightful story of an elderly woman and her caregiver who go on the run. After Louise Wilt breaks her hip, her children insist she have someone help her around the house. Louise hires Tanner Quimby, 21, a former college soccer player who lost her scholarship and ability to play after falling off a two-story balcony. Tanner, a dogged rules follower, is intensely angry and regretful over the accident, which happened at a party she didn’t want to go to. At first, Louise seems to Tanner like a harmless old lady. Then Tanner sees a mug shot of her new employer on the news proclaiming her a jewel thief who pulled off a 1975 robbery. Tanner decides to throw caution to the wind and goes on the lam with Louise. Meanwhile, an FBI agent is determined to catch up with the duo, ratcheting up the tension. Oakley keeps readers guessing about Louise’s motives for her long-ago heist and those of her best friend George, whom they’re on the way to see, delivering a suspenseful ending readers won’t see coming. The antics of this unlikely duo makes for an entertaining buddy drama. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Rostan.
February 15, 2023
An octogenarian and a 21-year-old college dropout form an unlikely bond as they travel across the country. Louise Wilt has lived three lives. Currently 84, with an on-the-mend hip, she has been forced to hire young college dropout Tanner Quimby to help drive her to her various doctors' offices and other appointments. Tanner is also healing from an injury. Falling off a two-story balcony broke her leg, ended her college soccer career and scholarship eligibility, and destroyed her dreams of playing professionally. They are an unlikely pair. And then they disappear. Jules, Louise's oldest child, calls the police to report them missing, and much to everyone's surprise, this leads to an FBI hunt because her mother is a suspect in a major jewel heist from 1975 who has been living under an alias since then. The story swaps among Louise's, Tanner's, and the FBI agent's points of view, and shifts in time from Louise and Tanner's middle-of-the-night decision to leave Atlanta to the FBI's hunt for the pair that begins after they have been missing for three days, to create an engrossing tale that is not quite what it appears to be in the beginning. The story addresses themes of aging, friendship, abusive relationships, the many forms of love, morality, the line between criminality and doing the "right" thing, and what it meant to be a woman in the 1960s and '70s and how so much--and so little--has changed since then. Oakley manages that last part delicately, without veering into misandry: Bad men are very much bad people, but it's not just because of their gender. Fans of the Netflix series Dead to Me will likely enjoy this take on the bonds of female friendship. An engaging tale, told well, that looks at unlikely friendships and how doing the right thing can involve very hard choices.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
February 15, 2023
Tanner Quimby needs a job and a place to live after losing her career as a soccer player, so she moves in with curmudgeonly octogenarian Louise Wilt. Then Tanner sees something on the evening news: an age-progressed photo of a woman who resembles Mrs. Wilt is described as the prime suspect in a 1970s jewelry heist. Soon after, Louise awakens Tanner in the middle of the night, insisting that they leave immediately in the mint-green, vintage Jaguar that Louise has stowed in her garden shed along with a pistol and a bag full of cash. As the duo make their way from Atlanta to California, they begin to face their pasts while evading the FBI and a mobster set on revenge. Oakley (The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, 2021) spins a clever intergenerational story about two mismatched women who have more in common than they expected. Louise is a delight, an earthy, honest older woman, and the story is full of clever surprises. This lively odd-couple caper will appeal to fans of Fredrik Backman and Rachel Joyce.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.