Both outrageous and outrageously original, this cool combo of art-heist-return-for-reward, Russian gangsters, and couple’s threesome with their assistant manages to simultaneously entertain and offend. Destiny and coincidence serve as lightning strikes moving the plot breathlessly along.

Viva, a naïve and poor 21-year-old Polish woman, wins the immigration lottery for a chance to come to America. As she arrives in L.A., she picks up a wealthy woman stranded on the side of the road who profoundly changes her destiny and her luck. Bobby Sleeper, the woman she picks up, is also from Poland but from a wealthier family and living in luxury with her sexy, retired, movie director third husband, Sebastian.

Bobby offers Viva a position as their live-in-assistant, as well as eventually that of mistress of her husband as well as herself. Bobby is both comedic provocateur and victim of her own mischief, constantly spiraling out of control of her own life. She comes up with a scheme in conjunction with a past Russian mafia husband to steal back a stolen priceless artwork and get a piece of the huge reward money for its return. Mayhem, adventure, danger, and endless plot twists ensure.

Best of all, the tale gets told by a now 84-year-old Viva, still speaking her broken English, recalling the caper along with her humorous observations for girls reading her tale of how much society has changed in the meantime.

All that remains is the movie that’s sure to follow!


Thanks to Penguin Group, Riverhead Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

I have mixed feelings about the plot in this book, but the writing is just…chef’s kiss.

To an extent if you really care about writing for writing’s sake (I do), then the plot of this book doesn’t matter much. The characterization does, as does the sense of place, and those are well rendered and gorgeously enhanced with some of the best writing I’ve seen recently.

I love books that can take banal interactions and make them poignant, and that’s masterfully done here. The acerbic, biting wit of this is outstanding, and the understated poignancy and humor is brilliantly achieved. The affected intellectual banter of the characters is perfect, somehow both smart and deliberately shallow. It’s a commentary on who the speaker is, but also a signal to the reader. I’ll be laughing about “sprezzy” forever.

The bones of the plot are excellent too, though it does go frustratingly a bit off the rails at the end, and all the threesome stuff feels like a bit of an overplayed hand and an eye roll after a while.

Still, the writing is exceptional, and renders any plot flaws minimal as far as affecting one’s enjoyment of the novel.

Unique characters written with a hilarious voice.

A fun stolen painting romp, wealthy people and a brand new immigrant who just arrived in LA.

Sex, politics, relationships, beautiful clothes, weird marriage/love triangles. It's everything.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Lady Waiting by Magdalena Zyzak has all the necessary elements for a highly entertaining read: it is a hilarious, over the top, romp of a novel involving a stolen painting, international locales, and a steamy love triangle. Viva, once a polish school teacher who immigrated to the US by winning the green card lottery is trying to make a way for herself in the US when she picks up a woman named Bobby who is hitchhiking on an island on L.A.s Highway 101 clad in an evening gown. By helping Bobby she wins another kind of lottery and is instantly inserted into lavish and surreal lives of the Sleepers. Shortly after Viva joins them as an assistant they embark on an international search for a stolen Vermeer painting. Viva is astute to the fact that a game is afoot and wishes for agency in the game but is also so swept up in her desire for Sleeper that she is willing to play along. This novel was WAY more spicy than I anticipated based on the blurb so definitely prepare yourself for some steamy scenes between Viva, Sleeper, and Bobby. I would say there is more sex than suspense.

Zyzak is a filmmaker and the ability to create a narrative I could visualize definitely came through in this novel. I could see the scenes playing out and hear the accents of the characters in my head. This novel could easily be adapted for the big or small screen soon.

I don’t know that this novel is intended to be anything but entertainment, but there are some deeper themes to contemplate here related to the immigrant experience, wealth, and what constitutes right and wrong. I wouldn’t say this is the focus or that it is weighed down with morals or commentary but I did think about these things as I reflected on this work.

There were a few aspects of the novel that didn’t quite work for me, and they could be spoilery so I’m going to put those separately below.

All in all, I think this is a hilarious global jaunt that is entertaining and worth checking out if you're looking for a fun read.

Thank you @riverheadbooks @netgalley for the #gifted advance copy.

Possible spoilers:
There were a few things that didn’t quite work for me. I loved the premise of this being a retrospective story of the present day told by Viva far into the future. Unfortunately, I just never felt like the author was able to make me feel like it was being told from the future Viva. There were small interjections here and there but they often felt jarring or out of place. I felt like I needed something more to make it feel really believable.

The middle of the book which focused heavily on the relationship between Viva, Bobby, and Sleeper was just too drawn out for me. I understood that diving into and exploring the dynamic between the three of them was essential to the story but it just felt to me like it went on too long and that it became more about just including lots of steamy sex scenes with the three of them then building up the dynamics between them. I was most engaged and interested in the beginning and end of the story. The middle definitely fed into this being a good fit for a visual medium (TV/Movies).

The Lady Waiting by Magdalena Zyzak was a great time.
I enjoyed this story a lot more than I originally thought I would.
The detail was amazing and the writing really sucked me in.
The characters in this book are amazing to say the least.
This story is so well-written and engaging, I really enjoyed it.

Thank You NetGalley and Publisher for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Well, I’ve never read anything quite like this before! I found it mostly a nightmarish fever-dream, mixed with episodes that are zany, glamorous and sexy. It was almost a bit too much for me, but I stuck with it, because I became invested in knowing the outcome of all that craziness. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A chaotic tale narrated by Viva, an 84 year old woman, about things that happened when she was 21 and a recent green card recipient from Poland. Set in 2018, it's all about how Viva gave a ride to a hitchhiker and changed her life. Bobby and Sebastian Sleeper are too much- just too much- but they hire Viva and then involve her in a wild plan involving a stolen painting. The dialogue is all over the place, the plot over the top, and it's sort of exhausting. That said, it's got bright points and spots where I laughed out loud. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An intriguing debut that would make a good movie.

I was really excited to get this book but felt like it really fell flat. It was soooo incredibly chaotic, in a hard to follow way. I didn’t understand who Lance was until about 30% in and was still confused about him. I struggled to pick this back up and wish there was more about Viva’s life and less about Bobby and Sleeper overall. None of this felt relatable either and the ending was really flat. Not sure I’d recommend this one.

A young Polish woman who recently immigrated to LA finds herself involved with a mysterious, wealthy couple who convince her to assist them with an international art heist. I love rich people behaving badly, especially when they’re this messy. The characters are so absurd and funny. Major White Lotus vibes.

This book was wacky as hell! I enjoyed Viva and Bobby. Such a strange and interesting pair. Viva is a Polish immigrant decides to start anew in Los Angeles. Bobby sees Viva hitchhiking on the freeway and rescues her from impending doom. The two become entangled and start breaking the law. This book is a fun summer read, but it's not very memorable. The writing is solid, but I did have some problems with the dialogue. It felt disjointed and a little lackluster. Decent novel but it's not an all-time favorite. If you want something breezy and silly, then you might enjoy this!

Thank you, Netgalley and Riverhead for the digital ARC.

Absurdly wonderful and full of the most delightfully insufferable characters. I was rooting for Viva the whole way through and this will stick with me for quite a while.

Absolutely crazy tale! A young immigrant from Poland picks up a wealthy looking hitchhiker and changes her luck - the question is, was it for the better of the worst! Viva is enamored with Bobby and her lifestyle and quickly agrees to work as her assistant - ignoring the multiple read flags. Before she knows it, Viva is wrapped up tightly in a scam to steal a Vermeer and is suddenly on the run.
This rollar coaster of a book will keep you guessing and the pages will fly by!
#penguingroup #riverhead #theladywaiting #magdalenazyzak

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Lady Waiting.

The premise sounds intriguing but this didn't meet my expectations at all.

This is definitely a case of me not being the ideal audience for a narrative like this.

It's not a thriller or a suspense driven novel so much as a young woman named Vive caught up in the throes of a charismatic, mysterious couple.

Vive eventually becomes the trois in their menage a trois and the trio go gallivanting across the continent to obtain a stolen masterpiece.

But, that's not the heart of the plot, as the narrative is centered on the complicated romance between Vive and Bobby and Bobby's husband.

There's plenty of sex, and rambling discourses on relationships, politics, feminism, so if you like narratives that really don't have a plot but just random people who eat, drink and sleep with whoever they want (and seem to have plenty of money to do all of those things) then this is the book for you.

It wasn't the book for me.

The writing was pretty good.