Seventy-five-year-old grandmother Ellie Jerome is sent on an adventure of unexpected twists and turns, when, after a birthday wish to be 29 again, she gets her wish for a single day.

8220;Take an ingenious idea for a plot, combine it with likable characters and genuine heart and you’ve got ’29,’ a novel about a woman who is full of regrets – until she makes a wish that changes her life and the lives of those she loves. A skillfully told story that will appeal to 29-year-olds of all ages.”

-- Jane Heller, bestselling author of Name Dropping and An Ex to Grind

Autorentext

Adena Halpern

Klappentext

**What if you closed your eyes, blew out the candles, and your wish came true?

**Ellie Jerome is a young-at-heart seventy-five-year-old who feels she has more in common with her twenty-nine-year-old granddaughter, Lucy, than her fifty-five-year-old daughter, Barbara. Ellie’s done everything she can to stay young, and the last thing she wants is to celebrate another birthday. So when she finds herself confronted with a cake full of candles, Ellie wishes more than anything that she could be twenty-nine again, just for one day. But who expects a wish like that to come true?

29 is the story of three generations of women and how one magical day shakes up everything they know about each other. While Ellie finds that the life of a twenty-something is not as carefree as she expected, the sheer joy of being young again prompts her to consider living her life all over. Does she dare stay young for more than this day, even if it means leaving everyone she loves behind?

Fresh, funny, and delightful, 29 is an enchanting adventure about families, love, and the real lessons of youth.

Leseprobe
seventy-five

I’m jealous of my granddaughter.

I would never, ever tell anyone that.

Everyone says the older you get, the wiser you get. I don’t feel wise at all.

I’m supposed to feel so blessed to be seventy-five years old. Hell, I tell people that myself, but that’s mostly to make myself feel better. I tell people that the best part of being older is the wisdom that comes with it. Truthfully, that’s bullshit. What else can you say, though, unless you want to completely depress people? Let them find out for themselves when they get here. If someone had told me how much I would truly hate being seventy-five, I would have been out of here a long time ago. Not killed myself. Oh, no, God forbid. I just would have moved to a deserted island and spent the rest of my days away from the harsh reality of a mirror.

So at seventy-five, if I’ve got all this wisdom, why can’t I cure cancer? If I’m so smart, why don’t people trust me to swoop in and save the world from utter destruction? Let my seventy-five-year-old girlfriends and me attend United Nations sessions so we can let them know how to make this world a better place. Since we’re so smart, let us give our opinions. No one ever asks. You know why? No one else really believes we’re so wise. If they did, maybe they’d listen to us more.

I hate being seventy-five. I really do. And I did not want this birthday party tonight, but my daughter, Barbara, insisted on it. Barbara can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes.

After reading what I’ve said so far you probably think that I’m one of those mean, cranky old ladies who complains about drafts that aren’t there, or returns one peach to the supermarket if it’s a little bruised, or steals Sweet’N Low packets from coffee shops. I’m not. I don’t even like Sweet’N Low. My granddaughter always says, “My grandmother is cool.” I think I am cool. I keep up-to-date on things—what’s happening in the news, reality shows (though I hate them)—and I always try to dress fashionably.

Seventy-five.

I am so goddamned old.

(And by the way, I rarely curse. That’s just the best way I can find to express myself right now.)

My girlfriends and I keep telling one another that age is just a number.

“I don’t feel seventy-five,” my lifelong dearest friend, Frida, says.

“I don’t, either,” I lie, knowing she’s lying, too. Frida looks and acts more like she’s eighty-five, but far be it from me to ever say that.

“My mother is a young seventy-five,” my daughter tells people in front of me. I hate when she does that. Why does she have to do that?

“I do it because you look so good, and I want to brag,” Barbara says. Let me say, it’s fine if I admit my age, but not when my daughter does. It’s no one’s business.

“My daughter is fifty-five,” I tell them, smiling.

“What did you do that for?” Barbara will ask when we’re out of hearing range of the person we’ve just inundated with unasked-for age information.

“What?” I ask defensively. “You look good, too!” I tell her, trying to act stupid. My daughter would never accuse me of throwing it back in her face. She doesn’t think I’m smart enough to do that.

Truthfully, the thing that’s pissing me off right now is that if I really stop and reflect, I’ve still got about twenty years max to stew about all the things I really should have done with my life. That makes me sad. Angry and sad.

First things first: I would never have sat in the sun for all those years. In those days, though, no one knew the damage it could do. I guess that’s the wisdom I’ve gained from getting older. Thanks. When I think of the years I sat by the pool bathed in oil without any protection . . . We didn’t have sunblock then. We were supposed to sit in the sun back then; it was good for us. We let our children play in the sun all day because they told us we should. If they burned, we put cold washcloths on them. They didn’t have skin cancer back then; at least I never heard of anyone getting it. Now it’s one of the main topics I discuss with my girlfriends. One of us sees a dark spot on our arm and it’s an all-day episode of House until the doctor tells us it’s nothing. Sadly, it wasn’t nothing for poor Harriet Langarten. That’s why we’re all so scared. I’ve become that old lady on the street who walks around with an umbrella on a sunny day. Through the years I’ve tried every cream on the market to get rid of sunspots and wrinkles. I’ve had chemical peels and let doctors scrape my face in the hope of undoing the damage I did trying to look tanned and sexy for a cocktail party in 1972.

Second, I wish I had exercised more. We didn’t work out when we were younger. We played tennis or golf, but mostly we played bridge at the country club while our husbands golfed. And since most of them are dead, they obviously didn’t get enough exercise, either. I joined a gym with Frida a couple of years ago, but we were the oldest people there by thirty years so I gave it up and bought a treadmill. I walked so many miles on that thing I could have walked to China and back by now. Even though I tell people I feel so much better since I started exercising, it’s a lie. My feet hurt, my joints hurt, my boobs hurt. They say that beauty must suffer. I feel I’ve suffered enough, so I rarely get on that thing anymore.

So I went the plastic-surgery route. I’ve used Botox and Restylane, had one face-lift (talk about PAIN) and a brow lift (waste of money and pain), and electrolysis to make me look younger. I can’t say that I look all bad, but I definitely don’t look fifty, like the doctor told me I would. Quack.

Aside from taking care of my looks more…