She knows this is the push she needs to break free of him and to leave London. She applies for her dream job on a vineyard in Alsace, in France, not far from her family home, determined to concentrate on her work. Didier Le Roy can hardly believe it when he sees that the only person to apply for the job on his vineyard is the same woman he once loved but let go because of his stupid pride. Now estranged from his wife, he longs for a second chance with Fran if only she will forgive him for not following her to London. Working so closely together, Fran soon starts to fall in love with Didier all over again. Didier knows that it is now time for him to move on with his divorce if he and Fran are ever to have a future together. Can Fran and Didier make their second chance at love work despite all the obstacles in their way? A romantic read set against the enticing backdrop of the vineyard harvest in France.

    This exhaustively researched book covers the entire period from 1920 to 1933. Author John J. Binder, a recognized authority on the history of organized crime in Chicago, discusses all the important bootlegging gangs in the city and the suburbs and also examines the other major rackets, such as prostitution, gambling, labor and business racketeering, and narcotics. A major focus is how the Capone gang -- one of twelve major bootlegging mobs in Chicago at the start of Prohibition--gained a virtual monopoly over organized crime in northern Illinois and beyond. Binder also describes the fight by federal and local authorities, as well as citizens' groups, against organized crime. In the process, he refutes numerous myths and misconceptions related to the Capone gang, other criminal groups, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and gangland killings. What emerges is a big picture of how Chicago's underworld evolved during this period. This broad perspective goes well beyond Capone and specific acts of violence and brings to light what was happening elsewhere in Chicagoland and after Capone went to jail. Based on 25 years of research and using many previously unexplored sources, this fascinating account of a bloody and colorful era in Chicago history will become the definitive work on the subject.

    By the river. On her own.After finishing her six-year long affair with her boss, Rosa is desperate to avoid him in the workplace and determined to forge a new life for herself.Harry Kennedy has sailed away from a messy Sydney divorce and is resolute in kick-starting a new life on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.Thrown together at work, Rosa and Harry discover a secret. One that their employer is desperate to keep hidden. To reveal it they must work together, but first they must learn to trust not only each other but their own rising attraction.Are these two damaged people willing to risk their hard won independence for the promise of love again?

    When Owen Deathstalker, unwilling head of his clan, seeks to avoid the perils of the Empire's warring factions, he unexpectedly finds a price on his head. He flees to Mistworld, where he begins to build an unlikely force to topple the throne. With the help of his crew, Deathstalker takes the first step on a far more dangerous journey to claim the role for which he has been destined since before his birth.

    Then hotshot financier Will Henley appears on the scene, prowling for an acquisition. Will could be big trouble - for Gabby's heart as well as her winery. Or his ingenious proposition might just prove to be the best deal of both their lives ...This full-length novel was originally published by Onyx and was a selection of the Doubleday Book Club.

    Kramer explores connoisseurship through the practical devices of “thinking wine” and “drinking wine,” making for an engrossing journey through one of life’s great pleasures. Wine’s complexities are often glossed over in favor of sound bites tailored to the novice. Kramer embraces and celebrates these complexities. The superbly written text covers the basics, from food and wine pairings to setting up a wine cellar.

    The science behind this unholy alliance is as elemental as acid, fat, salt, and minerals. Wine pro Vanessa Price explains how to create your own pairings while proving you don’t necessarily need fancy foods to unlock the joys of wine. Building upon the outsize success of her weekly column in Grub Street, Price offers delightfully bold wine and food pairings alongside hilarious tales from her own unlikely journey as a Kentucky girl making it in the Big Apple and in the wine business. Using language everyone can understand, she reveals why each dynamic duo is a match made in heaven, serving up memorable takeaways that will help you navigate any wine list or local bottle shop. Charmingly illustrated and bubbling with personality, Big Macs & Burgundy will open your mind to the entirely fun and entirely accessible wine pairings out there waiting to be discovered—and make you do a few spit-takes along the way.

    Illustrated throughout in full color.

    This is a wine guide like no other and is sure to be savored by anyone who wants their wine without the attitude.

    He's passionate about making wine more fun and its culture more accessible.Reading this book, you will certainly learn profusely about wine, but you will also learn about all sorts of things far beyond wine that you never knew were connected. You will discover that wine is an eye opening window into our world.INTO WINE is a journey - one that will appeal to anyone with an interest in wine - from the complete novice to the most seasoned drinker. Santé! (Amazon Description)

    But then in 2001, a Cabernet Sauvignon / Malbec blend beat all contenders in a blind taste test featuring Napa and Bordeaux’s finest. Today, Argentina and its signature wine are on the tip of every smart traveler’s tongue. How did this happen?The Vineyard at the End of the World tells the fascinating, four-hundred-year history of how a wine mecca arose in the high Andean desert. Profiling the outlandish figures who fueled the Malbec revolution—including celebrity enologist Michel Rolland, acclaimed American winemaker Paul Hobbs, and the Mondavi-esque Catena family—Ian Mount describes in colorful detail the nefarious scams, brilliant business innovations, and backroom politics that put Malbec on the map.

    His life story is a compelling slice of history, daring, innovation, feuds, intrigue, talent, mystique, and luck. Admirers and detractors alike have called him the Steve Jobs of wine—a brilliant, infuriating, contrarian gambler who seemed to win more than his share by anticipating consumers’ desires with uncanny skill. Time after time his decisions would be ignored and derided, then envied and imitated as competitors struggled to catch up.He founded Kendall–Jackson with a single, tiny vineyard and a belief that there could be more to California Wine Country than jugs of bottom-shelf screw-top. Today, Kendall–Jackson and its 14,000 acres of coastal and mountain vineyards produce a host of award-winning wines, including the most popular Chardonnay in the world, which was born out of a catastrophe that nearly broke Jackson. The empire Jackson built endures and thrives as a family-run leader of the American wine industry.Jess Jackson entered the horseracing game just as dramatically. He brought con men to justice, exposed industry-wide corruption in court and Congress, then exacted the best revenge of all: race after race, he defied conventional wisdom with one high-stakes winner after another, capped by the epic season of Rachel Alexandra, the first filly to win the Preakness in nearly a century, cementing Jackson’s reputation as America’s king of wine and horses.

    Parker, Jr., has dominated the international wine community for the last quarter century, embodying the triumph of American taste. Using Parker's story as a springboard, author Elin McCoy offers an authoritative and unparalleled insider's view of the eccentric personalities, bitter feuds, controversies, and secrets of the wine world. She explains how reputations are made and how and why critics agree and disagree, and she tracks the startling ways wines are judged, promoted, made, and sold -- while painting a fascinating portrait of a modern-day cultural colossus who revolutionized the way the world thinks about wine.

    Marnie Old and Sam Calagione divulge the secrets of their trades (sommelier and brewmaster, respectively) in this fully illustrated instruction book on how to successfully pair both beer and wine with a wide variety of foods.

    Camuto set out to explore Sicily’s emerging wine scene. What he discovered during more than a year of traveling the region, however, was far more than a fascinating wine frontier.   Chronicling his journey through Palermo to Marsala, and across the rugged interior of Sicily to the heights of Mount Etna, Camuto captures the personalities and flavors and the traditions and natural riches that have made Italy’s largest and oldest wine region the world traveler’s newest discovery. In the island’s vastly different wines he finds an expression of humanity and nature—and the space where the two merge into something more.  Here, amid the wild landscapes, lavish markets, dramatic religious rituals, deliciously contrasting flavors, and astonishing natural warmth of its people, Camuto portrays Sicily at a shining moment in history. He takes readers into the anti-Mafia movement growing in the former mob vineyards around infamous Corleone; tells the stories of some of the island’s most prominent landowning families; and introduces us to film and music celebrities and other foreigners drawn to Sicily’s vineyards. His book takes wine as a powerful metaphor for the independent identity of this mythic land, which has thrown off its legacies of violence, corruption, and poverty to emerge, finally free, with its great soul intact. Watch the Palmento book trailer on YouTube.