Missed opportunities, mistakes, and misunderstandings all combine with marvelous characters, interesting historical context, and a bit of magic to create a novel that takes us from 1922 to 1988, through the eyes of the two main characters. Titular character Augusta Stern, whose nickname Goldie was used only by her beloved Aunt Esther and her childhood friend Irving, has finally retired from her job as a hospital pharmacist. Augusta grew up in New York, has worked there for her whole life, and had no desire to retire.

But the doctored paperwork that shows her as 70 years old has irregularities, and the hospital administration has gently suggested that she retire. The writing is on the wall, and Augusta gracefully accepts that she will no longer have her much-loved career. Her niece, Jackie, sends her brochures about a retirement community in Florida, and she buys a condo there. Imagine her surprise and shock when, on her first day there while swimming in the community pool, she encounters her childhood best friend and boyfriend Irving Rivkin.

From that point, the story shifts into alternating narratives set in 1987 and 1922, moving forward in time from that juncture. We learn about how fourteen-year-old Augusta works at her father’s drug store, and how her mother had died two years before from diabetes. The cruel twist of fate is that just after her mother’s death, the use of insulin was perfected and saved the lives of many who were diabetic. We also meet the drug store’s new delivery boy, Irving Rivkin.

Irving is everything that Augusta is not. He loves her nickname, Goldie, which she hates. While Augusta is studious, loves to read, and already wants to be a pharmacist like her father, Irving is fun-loving, has a quick sense of humor, doesn’t read, and barely gets through school. But those huge differences, instead of dividing the two, somehow work to bring them together. Irving makes Augusta smile, and he loves watching her study. She loves the attention, and like everyone else, she knows that Irving is a really good person.

Six months after the death of Augusta’s mother, their great-aunt Esther comes to live with them. She’s originally from Russia, and she still wears shapeless black and grey dresses, a babushka over her head, and old-fashioned boots. But her cooking is delicious, and Aunt Esther has a way about her, a manner of seeing things that most would not notice, of knowing things that most would not/could not know. Augusta also discovers that Aunt Esther has a beautiful medicine chest filled with all manner of herbs and a brass mortar and pestle, which have been handed down for generations, and which she uses to make potions and elixirs that heal.

This becomes a point of contention between Aunt Esther and Augusta’s father, who believes in science and modern drugs. One winter, Irving contracts the flu, and none of the doctor’s prescriptions help; nothing that Augusta’s father has in his drug store can cure Irving. When Augusta visits him, he is weak and can’t eat or talk. Aunt Esther makes her special chicken soup, and that night, she gets out of bed and brings out her medicine chest and mortar and pestle. Augusta follows and watches as the old woman, dressed in a deep blue silk robe, with her hair falling down her back, mixes herbs and while singing a strange song, with the candles flickering behind her, grinds them into a find powder. Esther concocts a mixture that when sprinkled on the chicken soup they take to Irving, seems to miraculously bring him back to life.

Aunt Esther’s chicken soup becomes famous in their neighborhood, and Loigman does a wonderful job describing it. “So rich and flavorful, it was almost otherworldly. A single spoonful could make you swoon; a bowl was as heady as the first day of spring.” In her soup were tiny homemade kreplach, meat-filled dumplings that melted on the tongue. Be warned: the repeated descriptions of Esther’s cooking might cause a mad rush to the nearest deli.

Aunt Esther’s knowledge of herbs and healing creams and powders has spread in their community, and she is sought after by many for whom traditional medicine has not worked. Because the family lives above the pharmacy, it gets tricky. Augusta’s father does not approve of what Esther does, but eventually he looks the other way.

Loigman points out several times in the story how historically women who were healers were considered witches, while men who performed the exact same tasks and produced the same healing medications were called apothecaries. Augusta longed to be both traditional pharmacist and Aunt Esther-style apothecary, healer with modern medicine but also using the herbs and mixtures that Esther and their ancestors used to heal. Night after night, Augusta watched as her aunt selected herbs and pounded them together, singing over them with candles flickering while the room would fill with a potent scent. Loigman’s writing is beautifully poetic as she takes us into the room and we imagine the light, the mortar and pestle, the songs, and the scent of the herbs as Esther works her magic.

We also are privy to the growing relationship between Augusta and Irving as they mature and their relationship changes from friendship to romance. Augusta loves Irving and he seems to reciprocate. But one fateful evening, as Augusta and Irving go out for a double date with her best friend Evie and Evie’s boyfriend Nate, Augusta’s dreams come crashing down. Tired of waiting for Irving to make his intentions clear, she does something her aunt had warned her against. She creates a special potion for Irving. And that night, after Nate spontaneously proposes to Evie, Irving disappears. She finds out weeks later that he has married Lois Diamond, the daughter of the local gangster, and moved to Chicago with the family. She doesn’t speak to Irving again for over sixty years. Augusta never marries, and her life is devoted to her sister and her sister’s family and her career. And Augusta always wonders how the potion that she made might have affected her life, might have ruined it.

There is much to the touching and perceptive story that cannot be shared in one review. The care Loigman deftly demonstrates when sharing the details of the pharmacy. Some of us, of a certain age, might remember when drug stores had soda fountains. When there was a makeup department (I actually worked at one!) and a kind pharmacist who knew you and your family. Other details about the universal reluctance of men to trust women, their eagerness to denigrate women’s knowledge with “she’s a witch” instead of “she’s a healer.” Historically, women trust women, and so the people Aunt Esther treats are mostly women, and that had been true for her mother and her grandmother and past ancestors.

How Irving destroyed Augusta’s ability to trust and to love is also there in painful description, and so their reunion brings mixed feelings to Augusta. She’s attracted to Irving and yet she can’t forget his betrayal. Loigman leaves enough clues that we begin to suspect the real outcome of Augusta’s prior machinations when she was determined to find out Irving’s true feelings.

This is a novel that works perfectly. All the parts, all the details, all the history and the alternating chapters—past and farther past—flow seamlessly together. Loigman’s ability to describe people is also spot-on. We can picture the other residents at the retirement community as we read their physical descriptions and as we read about their actions and their words. It’s a book that seems much shorter than its 300 pages both because the story is so gripping and because we care about Augusta and want to know exactly what happened that left her alone at 80 in a retirement community in Florida.

Will Augusta get her happy ever after? Can she and Irving connect after so many decades apart and so many—a lifetime, in fact—misunderstandings between them? Does love truly conquer all? Loigman answers all those questions but there are no spoilers here. You must read this delightful novel to find out.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.