Full Bloom

About the book

Bloom’s. It’s not just a delicatessen-it’s a destination. An institution. A world-renowned food emporium that draws millions of customers craving home-style stuffed cabbage, gourmet olive oil, and the best bagels on the planet to its block-long building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

It’s also a family. Julia Bloom, the third-generation president of Bloom’s, struggles to keep not just the business but all the Blooms productive and flourishing. She needs to balance the store’s Old-World roots with its twenty-first-century needs, and she needs to balance the demands and whims of cranky Grandma Ida, resentful widowed mother Sondra, ambitious but lazy Uncle Jay, rebellious sister Susie, and slacker-genius brother Adam.

It’s a teetering tower. One misstep or misunderstanding might bring everything crashing down. And what business, what family, doesn’t have its share of missteps and misunderstandings? Julia is still learning how to run Bloom’s herself, relying on her tumultuous family to help her when they all have their own agendas and desires. If she fails, it could mean the end of Bloom’s-and the Blooms.

An irrepressible combination of wit and wisdom, Full Bloom is the compelling story of a family you’ll take to your heart and might very well recognize.

Praise for this book:

"I'm starving! You will be, too, as you read Judith Arnold's latest, the story of Bloom's Delicatessen and the three generations of Blooms who fill it with pickles and bagels and ever-engaging conflict. With her trademark combination of warmth and wit, Arnold shows us what happens when the needs of the individual trump the needs of the family. If you're anything like me, you'll finish Full Bloom wishing you lived only a block away from the deli and its cast of intriguing characters." - Diane Chamberlain

"I love the Blooms! Full Bloom is warmly written and fiercely funny, the characters real, flawed, and sympathetic." - Virginia Kantra

"Judith Arnold's delicious novel about a family running the best deli on New York's Upper West Side has it all: wit and wisdom, intelligence and heart, drama and laugh-out-loud comedy, gonifs and mensches, knishes and wine. In short, this wry look at the conflicts and joys that constitute family life is the everything bagel of novels, and I happily devoured it." - Judith Claire Mitchell

"You'll smack your lips and wish you had your own Seder-in-a-box as you read Full Bloom from Judith Arnold. Manhattan's most lovable dysfunctional family faces trials and triumphs set around Bloom's, their popular West side deli. With sass and savvy, Arnold captures not only the physical geography of Blooms and its urban neighborhood, but the emotional geography of the Bloom family, too. Eat it up." - Emilie Richards

"Full Bloom is an unforgettable story of family ties, turmoil, and finding the things that truly matter in life. Deeply dramatic and undeniably funny, Judith Arnold's latest will have you up all night reading." - Susan Wiggs