After his third promotion in four years, he was granted a rare bright future tag that only two executives, with very different agendas, were aware of. The company relocated him to run a new selling division and his seemingly scripted life appeared to be a dream, until the warnings he ignored caused it to have traits of a nightmare.With pixie dust bathing the scene in magic, the Peter Pan Man met his Wendy, and the curtain rose on The Show.

    Lucie Montgomery's semiestranged brother, Eli, calls her in France to tell her their father, Leland, has been killed in a hunting accident on the family's five-hundred-acre Virginia vineyard just as the fall harvest is about to begin. By the time he calls, Eli has already made funeral arrangements with what Lucie argues is indecent haste.It is an emotional trip home -- the first since an automobile accident two years ago, which left Lucie disabled and dependent on a cane. Her family's once elegant home and winery are now shabby and run-down, thanks to her father's penchant for fringy business deals. Eli, also cash-strapped and desperate to support his new wife's extravagant lifestyle, has already convinced their rebellious younger sister, Mia, to sell the debt-ridden estate and reap the profits from the valuable land it sits on, overruling Lucie's protests.On the eve of the funeral Lucie's godfather, Fitz, a partner in the family business, tells her Leland's death was no accident. Whoever killed him was motivated by the potential sale of the vineyard. It is the last conversation she will have with Fitz. Now the lone holdout preventing the vineyard sale, Lucie realizes she's next in line for another "accident." With her greedy brother, hell-raising sister, and a seemingly cut-rate vintner hired by Leland just before he died, all the suspects are disturbingly close to home. Unsure whom she can trust, Lucie must uncover the truth about the deaths of her father and godfather -- and oversee a successful harvest to save the vineyard she loves.Set in the historic heart of Virginia's horse and hunt country, The Merlot Murders is filled with fascinating detail about the science and alchemy of wine making.

    She has spent her whole life caring for the vines, not to mention her sour brute of a father. But now the Peine patriarch is dead, and to Clementine's distress his will stipulates that she must share the vineyard with a half-sister she hasn't seen in twenty years and another she didn't even know existed. Secrets tumble out as the three sisters struggle to rescue the family heritage while overcoming their own differences. As a precious blend of grapes, tears and triumph brings these estranged siblings together, readers will savor this heartfelt toast to sisterhood and inspired celebration of champagne.

    She makes it to San Francisco, but soon learns she needs a job if she’s to live properly. A kind, young man named Kenton Chandler offers her a sandwich and a job at his father’s inn and vineyards. With nothing to lose, Lettie takes him up on his offer and begins a whole new life in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. She immediately falls in love with the land and is fascinated with the idea of growing grapes in order to make wines. She, Kenton, and Rafe Lopez become friends as she learns about running the small inn on the property. At the same time she marries Kenton, a stroke kills his father. And then before she can tell Kenton she’s pregnant, he dies in an automobile accident. Heartbroken and burdened with the gift of the Chandler Hill Inn and Winery, she’s left with the task of making them a success. Struggling to raise a child alone while working to grow the business, Lettie makes a shocking discovery that changes everything.

    These days, Bruno is a passionate 'has-been' living on his mother's couch, separated from his wife and daughters, eating his way through an ever-dwindling bank account, faced with the gnawing doubt that he'll never be the writer he once was.Then Bruno stumbles on the secret to a 'lost vintage' of wine, stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War and presumed lost to the world for good. Recognizing his one chance at reviving his career, he scrapes together his last resources and sets off on an exciting food-filled quest that leads him from the rolling hills of Burgundy to a raucous wedding in Moldova, to a Beaune Bacchanal, and the greying walls of a Russian prison, as he attempts to find this extremely valuable wine and prove himself as the writer, father, and husband he knows he can be.Vintage is an exhilarating debut that reads like a delectable food memoir combined with a comic travelogue, including mouthwatering recipes and wine pairings. It is a deliciously scintillating story.

    She plans to take small groups around romantic Sonoma county to discover some of the county’s outdoor gardens. It’s all running as smooth as can be until Laura, the leader of the group of yoga instructors she’s leading, is found dead. And it’s Taylor’s corkscrew that’s found buried in Laura’s neck.She’s not sure who to trust, and everyone around suddenly seems suspect. Only two weeks after the murder, her very own administrative assistant, Amy, marries Laura’s husband, Dan, who doesn’t seem very bereaved about being widowed, and the three yoga masters who were also out on the tour begin to seem shady. Taylor can’t afford to jump ship from her new business endeavor, but just as she begins her investigation, another dead body surfaces. This time, it’s Dan’s sister. And the killer is coming for Taylor next.Now it’s up to Taylor to uncork this open-bottle mystery, before more blood is spilled. For fans of Laura Childs and Ellen Crosby, A Case of Syrah, Syrah is the charming first in bestselling author Nancy J. Parra’s Wine Country mysteries.

    Without the insurance proceeds needed to rebuild the winery, Sheila risks losing everything to corporate monolith Wilder Investments. When she confronts company president Noah Wilder, an undeniable attraction hits both of them with the force of a tidal wave. Will mistrust and deceit undermine this volatile union -- or will love rise from the ashes?

    “I was halfway to ninety—midway through life—and I had reached a full-blown crisis. Call it garden variety mid-life crisis if you want, but it was something more. You might say it was a theological crisis, though that makes it sound too cerebral. The unease I felt came from a deeper place than a mental file labeled “theology.” I was wrestling with the uneasy feeling that the faith I had built my life around was somehow deficient. Not wrong, but lacking. It seemed watery, weak. In my most honest moments I couldn’t help but notice that the faith I knew seemed to lack the kind of robust authenticity that made Jesus so fascinating. And I had always been utterly fascinated by Jesus. What I knew was that the Jesus I believed in warranted a better Christianity than what I was familiar with. I was in Cana and the wine had run out. I needed Jesus to perform a miracle.” –Water To Wine

    Now, thanks to a meddling ex-wife and a golf cart fiasco, he has just thirty days to pay a $60,000 fine or go to jail. Jason was hoping his Aunt Clara would come to his rescue, but she unexpectedly dies, gifting her liquid assets to charity. She does, however, will Jason a picturesque French vineyard—and it’s worth millions. But there’s a catch! If Jason goes to jail, the vineyard will transfer to his unscrupulous stepbrother. To raise the cash he needs, Jason travels to France with his knucklehead of a best friend to sell the vineyard. Cashing in will not be so simple, though. Formidable nuns farm the vineyard, and he needs their blessing to sell. To persuade the good sisters, Jason attempts a madcap series of dubious schemes, and while doing so falls for what he thinks is the perfect French woman. Amidst this melee of wine, women, nuns, and villains, Jason must unearth his true values in order to save more than just his soul. Infused with J.T. Lundy’s deliciously skewed sense of humor, and full of flawed but irresistible characters, Saving Grapes is a rollicking, good-hearted Wodehousian comedy that speaks to the hapless romantic in all of us.

    Now the Hollander family fortunes have suffered, and as matriarch Vivian Hollander prepares for the arrival of her daughter and granddaughter for their annual summer reunion, she fears it might be their last. Worse, selling the family legacy to strangers might expose the dark secret she's harbored for thirty-five years....Visits to the winery have been bittersweet for Leah Hollander Bailey ever since her father refused to let her take her place in the family business. Now a successful Manhattan shop owner, Leah loves the life she's built with her husband and daughter--but with her store, and her marriage, at a crossroads, she can't help but view this year's pilgrimage home as a sorely needed escape.College senior Sadie Bailey has a thesis to write, and the towering shelves of the manor's library offer endless academic inspiration. But when Sadie discovers evidence that her proper Grandma Vivian once ran a book club dedicated to the scandalous women's novels of decades past, the shockingly outrageous tomes give her new insight into her family's glory days.Resurrecting the trashy book club begins as the distraction all three women need. But as they battle to save their birthright and heal old wounds, they just might find that the pages contain everything they need to know about how to fight for what they want--and for the life, and love, they deserve.

    In How to Drink, Victoria Moore aims to redress the balance, by showing how to drink well throughout the seasons and at all times of day.She explains how to make the most delicious coffee and juices; how to choose wine that complements your food; and how to make cocktails for every occasion--whether to serve a garden barbecue, as a cold weather aperitif, or just to unwind with at the end of the day.Here are recipes for mint juleps in the spring, sloe gin in the autumn, hot buttered rum in the winter, and year-round showstoppers including the world's best gin and tonic. Moore is also an impassioned advocate of unfairly maligned drinks such as sherry, Campari and saki, and gives fascinating historical background on different spirits as well as invaluable advice on creating your home bar.How to Drink is a hugely readable, browseable and authoritative handbook, whose aim is to inform, entertain and crucially, make sure you can find the right drink at the right time."It doesn't need to be either difficult or expensive to drink as well as you eat, it just requires a little care...""A splendid book. Victoria Moore is quite right--it's not how much you drink but how you drink." --Fergus Henderson, chef and co-owner, St. Johns Restaurant"I loved How to Drink. For the first time in years I have broken open a bottle of vodka for a Bloody Mary, remembered how much better mulled cider is than mulled wine, drawn a fresh kettle for tea..." --Joanna Weinberg, author of How to Feed Your Friends with Relish"Anyone who loves their food should heed this unmatchable tutorial in the art of enjoying drink; Victoria Moore succinctly puts every sip in lively context, banishing the guilt from the pleasure of it all." --Rose Prince, author of The New English Kitchen

    . .Norrie Ellington is a successful screenwriter living in New York City. She’s also been a silent partner for her family’s winery upstate—until her sister and brother-in-law take a year-long sabbatical. With an experienced staff doing the work, Norrie figures Two Witches Winery will run itself while she enjoys the countryside and writes in peace and quiet.Unfortunately, there’s a sour grape in the town of Penn Yan who doesn’t care for vineyards. Bed and breakfast owner Elsbeth Waters complains to everyone who’ll listen that the local wineries are bad for her business. But when Elsbeth’s body is found on Norrie’s property, the victim of foul play, the screenwriter-turned-vintner dons a sleuthing cap to uncover the identity of a killer who told the B&B proprietess to put a cork in it—permanently . . .

    Chronicling the vintage years of Wilberforce's life, as he discovers a new world of friendship, adventure and fine wine, this is a haunting story of obsession and addiction, of loyalty and betrayal.

    A leading spokesman for the English Aesthetic movement, Wilde promoted "art for art’s sake" against critics who argued that art must serve a moral purpose. On every page of this collection the gifted literary stylist admirably demonstrates not only that the characteristics of art are "distinction, charm, beauty, and imaginative power," but also that criticism itself can be raised to an art form possessing these very qualities.In the opening essay, Wilde laments the "decay of Lying as an art, a science, and a social pleasure." He takes to task modern literary realists like Henry James and Emile Zola for their "monstrous worship of facts" and stifling of the imagination. What makes art wonderful, he says, is that it is "absolutely indifferent to fact, [art] invents, imagines, dreams, and keeps between herself and reality the impenetrable barrier of beautiful style, of decorative or ideal treatment."The next essay, "Pen, Pencil, and Poison," is a fascinating literary appreciation of the life of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, a talented painter, art critic, antiquarian, friend of Charles Lamb, and — murderer.The heart of the collection is the long two-part essay titled "The Critic as Artist." In one memorable passage after another, Wilde goes to great lengths to show that the critic is every bit as much an artist as the artist himself, in some cases more so. A good critic is like a virtuoso interpreter: "When Rubinstein plays … he gives us not merely Beethoven, but also himself, and so gives us Beethoven absolutely…made vivid and wonderful to us by a new and intense personality. When a great actor plays Shakespeare we have the same experience."Finally, in "The Truth of Masks," Wilde returns to the theme of art as artifice and creative deception. This essay focuses on the use of masks, disguises, and costume in Shakespeare.For newcomers to Wilde and those who already know his famous plays and fiction, this superb collection of his criticism offers many delights.The introduction is by Percival Pollard New York, July, 1905.

    But when an accident destroys the crop, Clarisse Cambon knows exactly who to blame - her daughter-in-law Jane.It's the latest incident in a decades-long feud whose origin both women have concealed from Luc, who struggles to keep his wife and mother on speaking terms.But when tragedy strikes and Jane is forced to take charge of the ailing vineyard she uncovers proof that Luc has been keeping secrets of his own. Worse still, Clarisse is the only one who knows the truth . . .