Lush
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Named a Best Book of the Summer by Time.com, People, Town & Country, NPR, Marie Claire, and Ms. magazine
A Belletrist Book Club Pick
Sweetbitter meets The Bear in this "intoxicating look at the world of wine"(Time.com).
Four wine experts arrive at a French vineyard estate for an unforgettable experience-but not the kind they expected. Avery gave up her hardwon but exploitative sommelier job to come. Wine prodigy Cosmo is trying to disguise that his life is in freefall. Millionaire Sonny owns a tacky wine brand, while caustic magazine writer Maëlys hovers with her pen poised. All await the penultimate night of trip, when they will taste a bottle rendered divine by age and scarcity.
Unfolding over several days of indulgence in delicious food and drink, raucous debauchery, and transformative truths that will leave each character changed forever, Lush is a sensuous tour of the wine industry's extreme pleasures and pains, a captivating summer read that, like a fine vintage, will linger long after you've finished turning the pages.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A wine lover’s paradise becomes a hotbed of complex emotions in Rochelle Dowden-Lord’s intoxicating debut novel. Four people—young sommeliers Avery and Cosmo, rich but unrespected vintner Sonny, and journalist Maëlys—are all invited to the South of France to taste one of the oldest, rarest wines on the planet. Over the course of their visit, romance brews, arguments arise, secrets are shared, revelations occur, and a whole lot of high-end drinking happens. Dowden-Lord tells the tale with a poet’s touch and a wine connoisseur’s enthusiasm. We revelled in her descriptions of wine cellars, vineyards, and fine vintages, let alone the bubbling cauldron of feelings framed by the story’s constant POV shifts. In addition to the characters’ inner dramas, Lush touches on everything from status and sexism to the dangers of overindulgence. But amid all the emotional fireworks lies a succulent summer read, and you’ll come away eager to make a vineyard pilgrimage of your own.
