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Carnegie Hill

A Novel

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Pub Date Aug 20 2019 | Archive Date Aug 20 2019
St. Martin's Press | Thomas Dunne Books

Description

Town & Country Magazine's Must-Read Books of Summer 2019 | She Reads' Best Books for Your Summer Roadtrip

"Carnegie Hill
has got to be one of the most charming, hilarious, and insightful books I've read in ages. When it comes to New York's (often befuddled) elite, Vatner has an eagle eye for detail, and an ear for whip-smart dialogue. This is an assured, heartfelt debut." –Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding and Honestly, We Meant Well


Deception is just another day in the lives of the Upper East Side's elite.

At age thirty-three, Penelope “Pepper” Bradford has no career, no passion and no children. Her intrusive parents still treat her like a child. Moving into the Chelmsford Arms with her fiancé Rick, an up-and-coming financier, and joining the co-op board give her some control over her life—until her parents take a gut dislike to Rick and urge Pepper to call off the wedding. When, the week before the wedding, she glimpses a trail of desperate text messages from Rick’s obsessed female client, Pepper realizes that her parents might be right.

She looks to her older neighbors in the building to help decide whether to stay with Rick, not realizing that their marriages are in crisis, too. Birdie and George’s bond frays after George is forced into retirement at sixty-two. And Francis alienates Carol, his wife of fifty years, and everyone else he knows, after being diagnosed with an inoperable heart condition. To her surprise, Pepper’s best model for love may be a clandestine gay romance between Caleb and Sergei, a black porter and a Russian doorman.

Jonathan Vatner's Carnegie Hill is a belated-coming-of-age novel about sustaining a marriage—and knowing when to walk away. It chronicles the lives of wealthy New Yorkers and the staff who serve them, as they suffer together and rebound, struggle to free themselves from family entanglements, deceive each other out of love and weakness, and fumble their way to honesty.

Town & Country Magazine's Must-Read Books of Summer 2019 | She Reads' Best Books for Your Summer Roadtrip

"Carnegie Hill
has got to be one of the most charming, hilarious, and insightful books I've...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781250174765
PRICE $27.99 (USD)
PAGES 352

Average rating from 151 members


Featured Reviews

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Felt like melrose place in the best of ways . Varying couples of all orientations and degrees of relationships living in an apartment building. A juicy read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I was provided this book via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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I love NYC has a backdrop for novels, it's a city that I definitely romanticize so I enjoy seeing the inside look at the lives of New Yorkers, even if they are fictional. Carnegie Hill is a delightful read with well-developed characters who are entertaining to follow as they deal with the challenges of love and marriage. The book is relatable and entertaining, I really enjoyed it.

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The book was exactly how I thought it would be. An easy relaxing read. The Upper East Side in NYC has always intrigued me and reading this book was like a little journal or soap.

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What a beautiful title! I am actively searching for books with multi-generational characters and the interactions among these did not disappoint. It was a beautiful and poignant look at all facets of love and I enjoyed peeping into their lives very much.

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When a newly engaged young couple moves into a multi-million dollar apartment in an elite old building on New York's Upper East Side, we soon learn that they -- and the much-older couples in their building -- do not have the perfect lives they may project to outsiders. Great story, with multigenerational characters we truly come to care about.

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This book was just fab. I really felt like I was living in a New York co-op while reading this book, and it was so beautifully written. I think that Jonathan really got the measure of the petty squabbles and minutae of living in such a place, plus I loved the story line of a marriage that breaks slowly down. Absolutely brilliant.

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A woman, recently married, moves into this crazy condo and somehow ends up on the board of directors with a cast of nutty residents. In the meantime, her husband is not who she thinks he is. It was a good read.

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At the time I chose to read this book, i was looking for something light, and light hearted. This did the trick! A love story/romance book that was just perfect.

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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review an advanced Kindle copy of Carnegie Hill. I knew from the description of the book that I would enjoy it, but didn't know I would enjoy it as much as I did. Carnegie Hill is the story of Penelope "Pepper" Bradford and the people who live in her upper-crust building in NYC. Pepper is engaged to Rick when they move to Carnegie Hill and they are married soon after. Pepper suspects that her marriage to Rick wasn't the best idea, but forges ahead. Pepper has no job, comes from money and decides to join the board of her building, opening up her world to contribute and meet others who live there. She meets Patricia, the current president of the board - a stickler to her position and the building's rules, two elderly married couples and a single, older resident. Jonathan Vatner has done something that always amazes me - he is able to convincingly write from the female perspective. His characters are multi-layered and realistic. I enjoyed this book immensely - a different book to the type I usually read. I was immersed in the story and the decisions that Pepper and her new-found friends make. I hope to read more by Jonathan Vatner in the future.

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If you have ever lived in a condo or coop and were frustrated by the goings on of communal living arrangements, this novel will be a fun read and a reminder of just how ridiculous and petty those boards can be. The characters are drawn from real life and the particular neighborhood of the upper east side of Manhattan comes all too readily to life in this novel. Highly recommended.

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