A Good Vintage
By Ashlyn Kane
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Luke Scherer has turned bad romance into an art. When he catches his latest deadbeat boyfriend selling Luke’s belongings—and his own body—to cover his debts, Luke decides he needs a vacation. He just doesn’t expect his Napa Valley retreat to be a step into his past.
Eight years ago Mal Kuijpers was grieving his wife while his vineyard floundered. Hiring Luke for the summer put the business back on track and a smile back on Mal’s face.
Nineteen-year-old Luke had just gotten out from under his father’s thumb and started saving for his education, his last screw-you to his old man. Then he made the mistake of falling for his boss, his dad caught up with him, and Luke panicked—and fled.
Now they have another chance. Mal has his own share of closet skeletons, including a family he doesn’t talk to and a dead wife he sometimes does, and he’s gone without romance for years. He works hard to convince Luke he’s worth more than a casual fling and asks for nothing in return, but Luke needs a relationship of equals. If Mal can believe in himself and Luke can believe in love, two hot summers might yield a lifelong reward.
Ashlyn Kane
Ashlyn Kane likes to think she can do it all, but her follow-through often proves her undoing. Her house is as full of half-finished projects as her writing folder. With the help of her ADHD meds, she gets by. An early reader and talker, Ashlyn has always had a flare for language and storytelling. As an eight-year-old, she attended her first writers’ workshop. As a teenager, she won an amateur poetry competition. As an adult, she received a starred review in Publishers Weekly for her novel Fake Dating the Prince. There were quite a few years in the middle there, but who’s counting? Her hobbies include DIY home decor, container gardening (no pulling weeds), music, and spending time with her enormous chocolate lapdog. She is the fortunate wife of a wonderful man, the daughter of two sets of great parents, and the proud older sister/sister-in-law of the world’s biggest nerds. Sign up for her newsletter at www.ashlynkane.ca/newsletter Website: www.ashlynkane.ca
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Reviews for A Good Vintage
3 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No, this was the part where Mal broke Luke down into tiny component pieces and put him back together different. When this was over, Luke didn’t know who he’d be. Just that he’d be Mal’s, maybe forever. And even though the thought terrified him, he couldn’t stop it. Didn’t want to.
I absolutely loved American Love Songs by this author, but then I read True North and I didn't like it and was kind of disappointed. Then came A Good Vintage and I didn't know what to expect and I was kind of dreading more disappointment. But I needn't have worried because this book hit the spot!
When Luke was 19, he left home and started working in a vineyard in Napa in order to earn enough money for his first year's college tuition. There he met Mal (then 28 years old), whose wife has recently died from cancer. There was chemistry between them and over several weeks they grew closer, but nothing ever happened because Luke picked up and left before it could.
Fast-forward eight years. Luke is a man who relationship-vise made one bad decision after another. He claims he's a poor judge of character, but I got the impression it was more like self-sabotage. His father was abusive, especially toward Luke, seemingly for no reason, and no matter how much Luke resented and even hated his father, he couldn't help feeling as if every beating and abusive word were somehow deserved, so naturally he doesn't deserve a boyfriend who's not a deadbeat like his father in one way or another.
When he catches his live-in boyfriend whoring out in their bed for money he needs to cover his gambling debts, Luke packs his bags and goes to his older brother, Val. Val sends him to a vineyard/b&b to relax, but 'forgets' to mention it's the same vineyard Luke worked at the summer he was 19, with it's name changed. There, Luke meets Mal again. The chemistry is still there and the book follows them learning to be in a relationship - Luke in the first relationship with a man he actually trusts, Mal in the first relationship since his wife died. They are learning to trust each other and to communicate, and along the way you fall in love with them too.
What bothered me about this book is the number of unresolved events - How did Jo's tests go? What about Gabriela? What about Luke's real father? These are mostly minor events (or treated as such), but it's the stuff I wanted to know, because I loved the side-characters too. Also, the book ends with a HFN ending and I would really love to know weather the HFN turns into a HEA at some point.