Description: "The characters are just as vivid as the setting . . . an addictive contemporary that will delight hopeless romantics and armchair travelers alike." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
"For readers who want their love stories effervescent but also substantive, Grape Juice offers a glass worth savoring to the last drop." --The Masters Review A gorgeous, seductive fiction debut from wine and dating columnist Eliza Dumais, about parsing romantic clarity amidst the mind-muddling effects of fermented grapes, the French language, and exhausting physical labor. Perfect for fans of Under the Tuscan Sun, French Kiss, and The Pairing. Alice is bored--romantically, professionally, creatively. So when her boss, a prominent wine importer, suggests she work a grape harvest in France, she sees it as a welcome opportunity to course-correct her apathy. Though Alice is plenty skeptical of the drink-pray-love premise, she begins to let her guard down when she finds herself picking riesling and practicing her French alongside a charming cast of international characters--and, most notably, Henri, the vineyard owner's nephew, who's just as lost as she is. "This book was basically tailor-made for me: a sexy European romance that had me feeling like I'd escaped to France from the very first page." --Marisa Meltzer, bestselling author of Glossy and It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin "Grape Juice is the romantic fantasy that has me refilling my glass time and time again." --Jamie Beck, photographer and New York Times bestselling author of An American in Provence "Our heroine seduces us in a feast of glamorous gluttony. Grape Juice begs to be read ravenously." --Rachel Seville Tashjian, fashion critic at The Washington PostBrief description: Eliza Dumais is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York, with a focus on wine, food, travel, and sex (hedonism, essentially). You can find her work in Vogue, Food & Wine, Cosmopolitan, and VICE. Grape Juice is her debut novella.
Review Quotes: "Grape Juice works because it refuses to let genre expectations dictate its shape. Dumais leans on strong characters rather than formulaic arcs, crafting a short novel that feels equally at home in the romance aisle and on a literary fiction shelf. For readers who want their love stories effervescent but also substantive, Grape Juice offers a glass worth savoring to the last drop."--Kritika Narula, The Masters Review