Daddy Issues
A Novel
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Clever, honest, sexy, funny, emotional, unique, and deeply romantic . . . Kate Goldbeck is in a class by herself!”—Ali Hazelwood, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A jaded twentysomething is stuck living at home, her life on pause, when a single dad becomes her new neighbor and unexpectedly sets her life—and her heart—into motion in this modern love story from the bestselling author of You, Again.
Sometimes love shows up where you least expect it—right next door.
At twenty-six, Sam Pulaski expected to be thriving in her academic career, living on her own in some exciting city. Expectations meet reality: She has massive student loan debt from studying art history, a dead-end service industry job, a situationship that’s equal parts intoxicating and toxic. And she’s been crashing in her mom’s condo—at least it’s not a basement?—for the last five years. If she can finally get accepted into a PhD program and get out of Ohio, the adult life that’s been on hold for half her twenties will finally begin.
Her mom’s new neighbor, Nick, is the ultimate grown-up. His adult life began the moment his nine-year-old daughter, Kira, was born. Her happiness is Nick’s only priority, especially in the wake of divorce. There’s nothing he won’t do for Kira, including giving up his globe-trotting career for something more stable . . . like managing a chain restaurant.
Sam has zero interest in an ultra-dependable guy pushing forty; frankly, she’s a little afraid of kids. But with just one thin wall separating the two condos, Nick proves difficult to avoid. His quiet confidence forces Sam to grapple with the other men in her life: her emotionally derelict friendwithbenefits and her actually derelict father. As her unexpected connection with Nick heats up (and steams up his minivan windows), Sam finds herself falling fast for a man whose life is steady and settled—while hers is anything but.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Goldbeck (You, Again) takes an empathetic look at the struggles of adulting in this lively contemporary. Twenty-six-year old Sam Pulaski is drowning in student loan debt and living with her mother after Covid decimated her plans to pursue a PhD in art history. She often fantasizes about an alternate timeline where the pandemic never happened, in which "Sam Pulaski 1.0" is doing research in Europe and dating men named Luca. Instead, for five years, Sam's been bartending at a kitschy bar in Columbus, Ohio, and struggling to figure out what to do next. Enter divorced dad Nick Martino and his precocious nine-year-old daughter, Kira, who move into the condo next door. Sam quickly falls for both of them. It turns out that Nick, pushing 40 and the general manager of a local Chili's, is extremely good in bed and endearingly devoted to his daughter—but is Sam ready to settle down permanently in a life she never planned? The choice becomes even more high stakes when Sam's mother and her nonbinary partner Perry get married and announce their plans to become digital nomads—which leaves Sam needing to figure out her life immediately. Through passionate prose, Goldbeck convincingly portrays the turbulence of the world after Covid and the paralyzing perils of indecision. Her lead characters feel raw and real, and their romance sparkles. This fires on all cylinders.