AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB • “For all those who crave a good page-turner, this is one wild ride of a story that carries equal parts wit and wisdom. I learned so much about Stoicism—I laughed out loud for real. And underneath the humor there was always something tender . . . a quiet truth about relationships, identity, and what it means to find peace with yourself.”—OPRAH WINFREY

'Maria Semple is a treasure.' —Los Angeles Times

The New York Times bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.

Maria Semple, author of the global sensation Where’d You Go, Bernadette returns with her most exuberant and life affirming novel yet.

Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being single, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a 'coven'—like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.

Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past—which she has worked so hard to bury—lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she’ll risk everything to get it.

Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman’s midlife transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.