Love, Loss, & the Family You Choose
~ coming October 13 ~
Some families are born. Some are built. And some are held together by sheer, stubborn love and a deeply concerning amount of feral cats.
When Sarah Spector was disowned by her father, three people refused to follow his decree: her aunt Gita, her cousin Abby, and Schatzi, a 76-year-old German man with Parkinson’s disease, a chaotic personality, and a premium Hustler Network subscription that was absolutely nobody’s problem but suddenly hers.
After losing Gita and Abby within six months of each other, Sarah finds herself the sole caregiver for the man who called her his “next best thing” and meant it, navigating a collapsed apartment, a broken eldercare system, and a version of love that looks nothing like she imagined.
Hilarious, heartbreaking, and completely unsparing, Next Best Thing is a memoir about how far love can stretch before it breaks, and what it looks like when it holds.
Who is Sarah Spector?
Born in Los Angeles and raised in Phoenix against her will, Sarah Spector is just your average every day person. Or so she wishes.
A survivor of childhood trauma, living with C-PTSD and as an adult child of a parent with borderline personality disorder, Sarah spent much of her life searching for the unconditional love she craved. In 2018, following a series of family tragedies, she found that love from an unexpected source: an elderly loved one who was grieving, poverty-stricken, and disabled with Parkinson’s disease – himself an orphan elder.
Their bond helped heal them both, bringing laughter, resilience, and hope - until Parkinson’s disease psychosis shattered the life they built together. This journey transformed Sarah’s life and she found herself now making decisions with her heart and not her head. Sarah’s written Next Best Thing to honor her loved ones’ memories and reach fellow survivors of C-PTSD and borderline parents so they can learn that they too are in fact deserving of love.
Sarah is a Certified Public Accountant and independent business consultant who did not expect eldercare advocacy to become her second career. She lives in the Bay Area with her rescue dog, Obi, and keeps Schatzi’s urn on her kitchen counter, topped with a miniature dark chocolate-covered marzipan loaf. Next Best Thing is her first book.
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