The Golden Boy

Barnes & Noble Best Fiction of 2026

An unexpected letter sends a man and his wife into their pasts—and offers them both a shot at redemption.

After an involuntary retirement from his high-flying Hollywood career, Stafford Hopkins has retreated to a luxury estate on Maui, along with his wife Agnes, both grimly resigned to life in a paradise where neither feels fully at home.

Stafford is ready to retreat into himself, too, when a letter arrives with shocking news. Stafford has been named guardian of four children he didn’t know existed: the grandchildren of his late childhood friend, Bobby Shepherd, whose ghost Stafford can no longer ignore.

Returning to both the hardscrabble farming town and the dark secret he’d tried to forget for decades, Stafford is forced to confront his past in order to rebuild his future—and to redirect the fates of his family and the four young people suddenly in his care.

Slyly funny and deeply moving, The Golden Boy is a captivating debut about love, mercy, and second chances.

"The Golden Boy is not just an astoundingly ambitious novel, but also—and more importantly, in my opinion—a wildly entertaining one, by turns hilarious and heartbreaking. Bravo, Patricia Finn!" ―Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy