
Sylvia's Second Act
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jane Oppenheimer
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By:
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Hillary Yablon
About this listen
Her husband’s cheating on her. She hates Boca. Sylvia is mad and she isn’t going to take it anymore. She’s moving back north, to the city of her dreams—with her best friend, Evie, in tow. Think a screwball comedy featuring a sophisticated Thelma and Louise with martinis in hand . . .
When sixty-three-year-old Sylvia finds her husband in bed with the floozy of their Boca retirement community, she’s shocked and furious . . . at first. By the time her head stops spinning, Sylvia realizes that actually, this isn’t what she wants anymore anyway.
So she enlists her best friend, the glamorous older widow Evie, to join her in setting up a new life in Manhattan. Sylvia’s ex-husband may have lost her life savings, but Sylvia and Evie are scrappy and determined, unopposed to pawning jewelry and roughing it in tiny apartments. And before long, Sylvia signs on to revive her decades-old wedding planning business with a former professional rival. Sylvia has a lot to prove, and beneath it all, she can’t help but wonder: Will she ever be able to get back into the dating game?
Sylvia doesn't want to be twenty-five or thirty again. Her age gives her wisdom, experience, and perspective. A career, sex, fun, and a new romance—her entire second act is stretched out in front of her, beckoning to her. It’s her time, and watch out, world, Sylvia is coming!
©2024 Hillary Yablon (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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I loved it
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Critic reviews
"A first-rate novel of second chances that will have you laughing right from the start. Sylvia will show you that it's never too late to reinvent yourself, especially if you have a good friend by your side and a cosmopolitan in hand." —Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Celebrants
"Sixty-something Sylvia Fisher's life needs a make-over. She's sick of retirement life in Boca Raton AND her cheating husband. Novelist Hillary Yablon gives readers hungry for a midlife romance a fizzy, delicious story we didn't know we needed. Take a bow, Sylvia, cause readers are gonna give this laugh-out-loud female buddy story made in Manhattan a standing ovation." —Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of The Homewreckers
"Sylvia’s story hit all of my favorite notes - laugh out loud funny, action packed and ultimately redemptive. It’s a love song to women of a certain age, and I’ll be humming it for years to come." —Annabel Monaghan, bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer
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Story
When Lydia takes a job running the Senior Citizens’ Social Club three afternoons a week, she assumes she’ll be spending her time drinking tea and playing gentle games of cards. The members of the Social Club, however, are not at all what Lydia was expecting. From Art, a failed actor turned kleptomaniac to Daphne, who has been hiding from her dark past for decades to Ruby, a Banksy-style knitter who gets revenge in yarn, these seniors look deceptively benign—but when age makes you invisible, secrets are so much easier to hide.
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Aging imperfections
- By Susan Love on 08-07-24
By: Clare Pooley
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The Summer of Yes
- By: Courtney Walsh
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby, Cathi Colas
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Sometimes you’re so busy writing other people’s stories that you can lose the plot of your own. This wasn’t how Kelsey Worthington’s day was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to be picking up Starbucks for her smarmy boss. She wasn’t supposed to get hit by a car that jumped the curb. And she certainly wasn’t supposed to wake up in a hospital room next to Georgina Tate—the legendary matriarch of New York City businesswomen.
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It can be fun to say yes and try new things.
- By Debbie S on 05-01-25
By: Courtney Walsh
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The Authenticity Project
- A Novel
- By: Clare Pooley
- Narrated by: Anna Cordell
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren’t really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes—in a plain, green journal—the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It’s run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves - and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica’s Café.
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Sweet, easy listen
- By Benhandel on 04-23-20
By: Clare Pooley
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The Sober Diaries
- How One Woman Stopped Drinking and Started Living
- By: Clare Pooley
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Like many women, Clare Pooley found the juggle of a stressful career and family life a struggle, so she left her successful role as a managing partner in one of the world's biggest advertising agencies to look after her family. She knew the change wouldn't be easy, but she never expected to find herself an overweight, depressed, middle-aged mother of three who was drinking more than a bottle of wine a day and spending her evenings Googling 'am I an alcoholic?'
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The performance makes this one worthwhile...
- By River Holmes-miller on 04-24-18
By: Clare Pooley
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Close to the Bone
- Widow's Island Novella, Book 1
- By: Kendra Elliot
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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FBI Special Agent Cate Wilde is back home on a remote Pacific Northwest island when she gets the call: a teenager’s skeletal remains have been found on a nearby island. Together with Tessa Black, a childhood friend turned local deputy, Cate confronts dreary weather and bleak leads to make sense of the death. The complications pile up as Cate is distracted by the coroner on the case - and by nagging memories that draw her twenty years into the past.
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Okay story and lousy narration..
- By Trish R. on 10-25-18
By: Kendra Elliot
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Margo's Got Money Troubles
- A Novel
- By: Rufi Thorpe
- Narrated by: Elle Fanning
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.
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I love Margo’s brain and Elle’s voice 👏🏻💕
- By Jessica Larson on 08-19-24
By: Rufi Thorpe
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The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
- By: Abbi Waxman
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all - or mostly all - excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster!
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Engaging story but not well written
- By Rachel A. on 08-16-19
By: Abbi Waxman
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The Overdue Life of Amy Byler
- By: Kelly Harms
- Narrated by: Amy McFadden
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overworked and underappreciated, single mom Amy Byler needs a break. So when the guilt-ridden husband who abandoned her shows up and offers to take care of their kids for the summer, she accepts his offer and escapes rural Pennsylvania for New York City. Usually grounded and mild mannered, Amy finally lets her hair down in the city that never sleeps. She discovers a life filled with culture, sophistication, and - with a little encouragement from her friends - a few blind dates.
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Enjoyable narration. Story is an easy read.
- By Em Jay Reads on 07-18-19
By: Kelly Harms
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The Same Bright Stars
- A Novel
- By: Ethan Joella
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Three generations of Schmidts have run their family’s beachfront restaurant and Jack has been at the helm since the death of his father. Jack puts the demands of the restaurant above all else, with a string of failed relationships, no hobbies, and no days off as proof of his commitment to the place. He can’t remember the last time he sat on the beach, or even enjoyed a moment to himself. Meanwhile, the DelDine group has been gradually snapping up beloved eateries along this stretch of coast and are pursuing Jack with a very generous offer to take Schmidt’s off his hands.
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F word use
- By S Challis on 07-29-24
By: Ethan Joella
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Mrs. Everything
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Weiner
- Narrated by: Ari Graynor, Beth Malone
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life. But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies.
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Absolutely beautiful
- By Courtney Engle on 06-13-19
By: Jennifer Weiner
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The Girl from Greenwich Street
- A Novel of Hamilton, Burr, and America’s First Murder Trial
- By: Lauren Willig
- Narrated by: Jane Oppenheimer
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows. Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well. Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor.
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Nibble and engaging foray into a new genre
- By Amazon Customer on 05-03-25
By: Lauren Willig
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The Phoenix Ballroom
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Hogan
- Narrated by: Jane Copland
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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For fifty years, Venetia Hargreaves’s world revolved around her husband. She built their life around his big career, with dinner on the table at six, a lovely home, and a dutiful son just as business-minded as his father. Now Venetia’s a wealthy widow left with a beautiful but empty home, an enviable bank balance, and a distinct feeling that she missed the boat. Once upon a time, she was a dance instructor who dreamed of opening her own ballroom school with a fellow teacher who won her heart. Instead, Venetia chose the safer path.
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Hope, renewal,
- By Jennifer A Hayes on 04-12-25
By: Ruth Hogan
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The Goddess of Warsaw
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Barr
- Narrated by: Jane Oppenheimer
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles, 2005. Sienna Hayes, Hollywood’s latest It Girl, has ambitions to work behind the camera. When she meets Lena Browning, the enormously mysterious and famous Golden Age movie star, Sienna sees her big break. She wants to direct a picture about Lena’s life—but the legendary actor’s murky past turns out to be even darker than Sienna dreamed. Before she was a Living Legend, Lena Browning was Bina Blonski, a Polish Jew whose life and family were destroyed by the Nazis.
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Too much fictionalization of real events
- By Shar Boogie R on 07-27-24
By: Lisa Barr
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The Last Love Note
- A Novel
- By: Emma Grey
- Narrated by: Leeanna Walsman
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Kate is a bit of a mess. Two years after losing her young husband Cameron, she’s grieving, solo parenting, working like mad at her university fundraising job, always dropping the ball—and yet clinging to her sense of humor. Lurching from one comedic crisis to the next, she also navigates an overbearing mom and a Tinder-obsessed best friend who's determined to matchmake Kate with her hot new neighbor.
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Incredibly breathtaking
- By Monique on 12-05-23
By: Emma Grey
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Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
- A Novel
- By: Kirsten Miller
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.
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Small town attitudes
- By Maureen Teague on 08-26-24
By: Kirsten Miller
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A Map to Paradise
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation. Then one early morning Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore.
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Not my favorite from my favorite author.
- By Ginger on 03-28-25
By: Susan Meissner
What listeners say about Sylvia's Second Act
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- Amberisis
- 10-24-24
funny and not typical
The voice was perfect. The characters real and it was not prescriptive! I liked that there was no sacherine.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-24-24
Total fun!!!
I really enjoyed this book! I would recommend it to my friends ! Made me laugh out loud.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ana Camp
- 05-01-25
So entertaining!
Refreshing points of view from all characters, fun read! Thank you, think I found another author!
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- Myrnster
- 05-21-24
So many laughs!
Great story with a lot of humor. The narrator was very good too! I am recommending to my friends!
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1 person found this helpful
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- sue.g
- 01-05-25
Just what I needed
I needed love, drama and laughter. This book delivers! I’ll be looking for more from this author
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- Iteachart
- 06-26-24
Wonderful Listen
This is a new author to me and I am hoping she write more about Sylvia! This was such a well written funny story with great characters. Most of all, an author who writes a fun story about older adults I have just about given up on immature rom-coms. The narrator is also new to me and so good, Jane reminds me of Julia Whelan (my favorite narrator).
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2 people found this helpful
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- PeggyS
- 06-19-24
So Much Fun!
Loved the character, Sylvia. She was such a hoot! And also so wise. Great book!
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1 person found this helpful
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- J Kitchen
- 06-10-24
Funny, heartwarming, and intriguing story
Nice to have a story that breaks the usual “dating” story we have all read hundreds of times now.
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- Cami Sue
- 01-05-25
I enjoyed it
I enjoyed this book. Excellent narration. Full of twists and excitement… it truly entertained. I would read it again.
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- J Wilson
- 05-09-24
Very Much Enjoyed!
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. You can’t help but like Sylvia, and many of her adventures were so relatable. It was refreshing to experience that there is life after 60, and I found myself laughing at several of the situations in which she found herself. Can’t wait to share this book with my friends!
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