Hot Air: A Novel - Softcover

Dermansky, Marcy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593315367 ISBN 13: 9780593315361

Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex, and revenge unspools when a billionaire crashes his hot-air balloon into the middle of a post-pandemic first date.

Joannie hadn’t been on a date in seven years when Johnny invites Joannie and her daughter to dinner. His house is beautiful, his son is sweet, and their first kiss is, well, it’s not the best, but Joannie could convince herself it was nice enough. But when Joannie’s childhood crush, a summer-camp fling turned famous billionaire, crash-lands his hot-air balloon in Johnny’s swimming pool, Joannie dives in. 

Soon she finds herself alighting on a lost weekend with Johnny the bad kisser, Jonathan the billionaire, and Julia, his smart, stunning wife. Does Joannie want Jonathan? Does Julia want her husband? Or Joannie? Or Joannie’s beautiful little girl? Does Johnny want Julia? Does Jonathan want Joannie, or Julia, or maybe, his much younger personal assistant, Vivian, who is tasked to fix it all? A tale of lust and money and lust for money, Hot Air is as astonishing as it is blisteringly funny, a delirious, delicious story for our billionaire era.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

MARCY DERMANSKY is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Hurricane Girl, Very Nice, The Red Car, Bad Marie, and Twins. She has received fellowships from MacDowell and The Edward F. Albee Foundation. She lives with her daughter in Montclair, NJ.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Joannie was not certain how the date was going. She had not been on a date for a very long time. Not since her divorce seven years ago. And then, of course, not during her ten years of marriage. She had never been on a proper date with her ex-­husband even before they were married. He had just sort of worn her down, so clearly in love with her.

And that was a big chunk of her life.

Her marriage.

Years and years of her life. Stolen. Not only the opportunity to date, but to lead her life, spend her days the way she would have liked, instead of always trying to placate someone else. She did, of course, have a marvelous child. Lucy.

So, she was on a date. Joannie had met him not on an app but in real life, at a block party on a very fancy block around the corner from her not-­that-­fancy apartment. Her daughter had a friend who lived on this block. At the party, Joannie had gotten pleasantly drunk and accepted a hit from a joint, even though she did not like to smoke pot, because she figured, why not? Some people made friends through their dogs. Joannie met people through her daughter. The man she’d met had a son the same age as her daughter, and her daughter said this boy wasn’t awful.

Johnny texted her the next day, asking her out, and when Joannie replied that she did not have a babysitter, he wrote back that she should come to his house, bring her daughter, and the kids could watch a movie in the basement. He promised a nice meal, and Joannie loved free dinners. Nothing, of course, could ever happen between them because of their names. Joannie and Johnny.

Joannie realized very quickly that she was not attracted to Johnny. He was not unattractive. Attractive, even. He had money, too, which was important after being married for so long to a man who did not. He liked good movies. He read books. He had made her dinner. She knew, however, that she was not attracted to him, because after the meal, he had kissed her. They had gone outside to watch the sunset. The sky had turned pink. The light sparkled over the lawn, onto the swimming pool that Joannie did not know he had. She returned the kiss. It started out fine and then became unpleasant—­oppressive, even—­with Johnny’s tongue in her mouth, his arms wrapped around her so tightly that it was difficult to extricate herself. It was a kiss that did not end. Joannie was realizing that she would have to forcibly end this kiss, because she would soon require oxygen, when a hot air balloon came veering down toward Johnny’s very large backyard. “Holy fuck!” Johnny yelled, letting her go, looking up at the sky, while Joannie gulped for air.

The hot air balloon was heading straight for the swimming pool. It was crazy. Joannie decided she was never going to kiss this man, Johnny, again.

This made her sad, because during the meal, she had begun to imagine their life together, and already it had come crashing down. Like a hot air balloon. She had thought about the flowers she would plant in the yard, the coffee she would drink in the morning, sitting outside in one of the Adirondack chairs beneath the oak tree. The basement had a fully equipped playroom with a floor-­to-­ceiling movie screen. She would be a stepmother, which was tricky, but how hard could that be? It would be nice to have a playmate for her daughter. But now she would never find out.

There was a man and a woman in the basket of the hot air balloon careering from the sky, and they were screaming, not out of fear, but in anger. They seemed to hate each other. They were all dressed up.

“Make way!”

“We’re coming down!”

“I will kill you, if we don’t die!”

This was startling, to say the least.

“They are going to land in the pool!” Johnny said. He and Joannie ran for the pool, but the hot air balloon landed on the lawn, right at the edge of the pool.

“Thank God!” Johnny yelled.

“We’re okay!” the man yelled.

And then the balloon tipped over, falling into the pool with a poignant splash. The man went under, headfirst. Joannie watched the bottoms of his leather shoes go under last. She had never seen anything like this.

Joannie was grateful not to be kissing Johnny anymore, and a man had fallen into the pool and needed saving. Joannie dove in. It was mid-­May. The water was cold. She grabbed the man, putting her arms around his chest, and brought him up to the surface, kicking with her legs, and there at the end of the pool was Johnny and the woman in an evening gown, who had somehow climbed out of the basket onto dry land, and they were helping her pull the man out of the water. He began spouting water. Not dead. Not in need of CPR, which was a relief, because Joannie did not know how to give CPR. He was wearing a tuxedo.

Joannie pulled herself out of the pool on her own, while Johnny and the woman from the hot air balloon tended to the not-­drowned man. Joannie could not believe how alive she felt. She felt amazing. She had saved a man’s life. She had jumped into cold water. It was a tremendous combination. She could feel the grin on her face. She saw Johnny looking up at her and her smile extended to him. Maybe she would try kissing him again. Maybe she had been wrong.

“That was incredible,” she said.

Joannie wondered about her daughter, wondered if she had seen the hot air balloon go into the pool, but the kids were in the windowless basement, watching the third Harry Potter movie.

á

The man in the tuxedo looked familiar to Joannie. She did not think that she knew him. Possibly he was famous.

“Joannie?” he said.

Joannie blinked.

She did know him.

From the news, yes, but also from sleepaway camp, a long time ago. He had been a dick. She had hated him.

“It’s Jonathan,” he said. “Jonathan Foster. It’s been a long time. We went to camp together.”

Joannie’s first kiss had been with this man, when she was fourteen, when he was not the CEO of a major tech company. The kiss had taken place on the first day of camp. They were waiting for an activity to start and somehow instead took a walk around the camp, and they were behind the dining hall when he asked if he could kiss her. He was so good-­looking, and he liked her, and it had been a good kiss, even—­Joannie had felt her skin tingle—­but that had been it. They never kissed again; they did not even hang out. They barely talked to each other. Jonathan had his group, the popular kids, and Joannie had hers, the oddballs and losers. Camp had been a lot like school that way. He never acknowledged that they’d ever kissed. It left Joannie doubting herself, wondering if it had ever happened. Had he kissed her? Had she imagined it? She was surprised that he remembered her name.

“You just saved my life,” he said. “Oh my God. Joannie Nelson. Can you believe sometimes I still think about you?”

He said it like it was a gift, like this would mean something to her, which seemed crazy. His ego was astounding.

“That’s weird,” Joannie said. “I don’t ever think about you.”

The moment that followed felt awkward.

How were you supposed to behave after a hot air balloon crashed into a swimming pool on your first date in many years? This was new territory for Joannie. As a rule, Joannie didn’t like rich people, but she thought that could change if she were to become one.

“My name is Jonathan, too,” Johnny said. “But people call me Johnny. Welcome. Way to make an entrance, man.”

The woman in the evening gown took off...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593315367
• ISBN 13: 9780593315361
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 209
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar