The Californer - When Family Fails, Who Shows Up? Sarah Spector's NEXT BEST THING Offers a Personal Answer

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An unflinching memoir of unexpected caregiving, fractured family relationships, and the friends and strangers who step in when those closest to us step away.

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Californer -- Franklin Maurice Press announces the release of Next Best Thing: A Memoir of What Remains When Family Fails by Sarah Spector on October 13, 2026, available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. The memoir chronicles Spector's four-year experience caring for an aging man who had no one else to turn to, navigating fractured family relationships and the institutions entrusted with his care.

Spector is a California-licensed CPA and senior executive with more than 25 years of professional experience. In September 2018, while her cousin Abby lay dying in a Los Angeles hospital, she agreed to help Abby's stepfather, Peter. Known as Schatzi, he had Parkinson's disease and needed someone to take responsibility for his care. Spector was neither his daughter nor his next of kin, but she became the person he relied on.

What followed involved nursing homes, conservatorship proceedings, concerns about elder abuse, and the isolation of the pandemic. Through original text messages, emails, and legal documents, Spector gives readers an inside account of the decisions, frustrations, and emotional demands of unexpected caregiving.

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"Originally, I wrote this book because the stories about Schatzi were hysterical. He was chaotic, and I thought people would love reading about our adventures. As those adventures unfolded, I realized there was much more to the story that others could benefit from," says Spector.

Spector adds, "I hope readers in the sandwich generation feel understood in their caregiving experiences, and those who have had traumatic childhoods see themselves and find hope. I also wanted to pull back the curtain on Parkinson's disease, particularly psychosis, and its impact on loved ones and caregivers. And for readers who simply enjoy a good story, there's a lot of laughter with a few tears. I cried a lot, but that doesn't count."

In sharing her experience, Spector brings attention to what caregiving looks like when family relationships are fractured and responsibility falls to someone who never anticipated taking it on. Her account explores the meaning of family through the actions of friends and strangers who stepped forward, while Schatzi's personality brings humor to difficult circumstances.

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Next Best Thing offers a personal perspective for readers navigating caregiving, family estrangement, and the complicated choices involved in showing up for another person.

The memoir is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and is available wherever books are sold.

For more information, go to https://www.authorsarahspector.com.

About Sarah Spector

Sarah Spector is a Certified Public Accountant, independent business consultant, and author of Next Best Thing: A Memoir of What Remains When Family Fails. A survivor of childhood trauma living with C-PTSD, she became an unexpected caregiver and eldercare advocate in 2018. She wrote her memoir to honor her loved ones and offer fellow survivors hope that they, too, are deserving of love. Next Best Thing is her first book.