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Vera Stein is Fine

A Novel
By Julie Murphy
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Brief Description
From #1 New York Times bestseller Julie Murphy comes a heartfelt and hilarious tale of a woman who thinks life and love have passed her by until she’s thrown into her grandmother’s quirky world of octogenarian free love and gets a second chance with the one... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

From #1 New York Times bestseller Julie Murphy comes a heartfelt and hilarious tale of a woman who thinks life and love have passed her by until she’s thrown into her grandmother’s quirky world of octogenarian free love and gets a second chance with the one man she never expected to see again. Perhaps it’s never too late to play the opening credits…

Welcome to Starlight Palms, a favourite retirement facility among Hollywood actors and industry professionals tucked away just outside of sunny Palm Springs. Filled with forgotten scream queens, eccentric screenwriters, and heartthrobs of the past, it has a brand-new resident: Vera Stein, age forty.

Vera knows she’s missed her chance at a life worthy of the silver screen, just like she missed her chance at ever finding true love. But Vera isn’t one to take chances. She’s spent most of her adult years caretaking for her dying mother and her movie star boss’s ego. Now abruptly houseless and jobless, Vera has nowhere to land, so to grandmother’s house we go!

The Starlight Palms Senior Living Center is midcentury Hollywood down to its pastel-painted bones. This desert gem isn’t lacking in saucy plot twists (swinging seniors, anyone) or a leading man: Elias Buckley, the on-site doctor and Vera’s former ill-fated college fling and—for reasons that will stay in Vegas—legally her ex-husband according to the state of Nevada.

It’s not long before Vera falls into a job as the activities coordinator and under the spell of a certain smart-mouthed doctor… Suddenly all those empty years in LA look less like mistakes and a lot more like backstory. With a fresh start at her fingertips, Vera begins to see that even with all the detours she’s taken, there’s still a Hollywood ending (and maybe even a happily ever after) in sight…

TROPES

  • Second Chance Romance
  • Workplace Romance
  • Multigenerational Family Drama
  • Forced Proximity
  • New Lease on Life and Spice

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780063575141

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 28 July 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: HarperCollins

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Weight: 300g

Pages: 400

Collections

Contemporary Romance Fiction General Fiction Julie Murphy Romance

About the Author

Julie Murphy splits her time between North Texas and Kansas with her husband, who loves her, and her cats, who tolerate her. She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author and coauthor of over twenty books for all ages including Dumplin' (now a Netflix original film) and the Christmas Notch series cowritten with her best friend, Sierra Simone. When Julie isn't writing, she's hunting for the perfect slice of cheese pizza, discovering a new hobby that she will soon discard, and planning her next travel adventure.

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