Eight Hundred Grapes: a perfect summer escape to a sun-drenched vineyard

Eight Hundred Grapes: a perfect summer escape to a sun-drenched vineyard
Laura Dave

There are secrets you share, and secrets you hide…On the eve of her wedding, Georgia Ford returns to her family’s vineyard, shaken by a devastating secret. She yearns for the rituals of harvest, the comfort of her mother’s lasagne, her brothers’ camaraderie - but the family home is rife with undercurrents. Her parents’ long marriage is revealed to be far from perfect , and her brothers, Bobby and Finn, are badly at odds.As the storm clouds gather over the vineyard’s last harvest, sibling rivalry, marriage vows and the promise of the future are strained to breaking point. Can Georgia and her family make their peace with the secrets they have hidden from each other? Georgia must also face the secret her fiance has kept from her and decide where her heart lies.

Copyright (#ue2612add-b506-5bd8-a4a8-0ca8f3e910e4)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Copyright © Laura Dave 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover images © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Laura Dave asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008129378

Version: 2015-07-02

Dedication (#ue2612add-b506-5bd8-a4a8-0ca8f3e910e4)

J.

Without you, there probably wouldn’t be a novel …

There certainly wouldn’t be such great wine

You have to grow about eight hundred grapes to get just one bottle of wine. If that isn’t an argument to finish the bottle, I don’t know what is.

—Anonymous

Contents

Cover (#u8b63c8bb-445e-5c49-b9ab-f667b65b239b)

Title Page (#u430db8cc-0025-593d-a63c-3295159cfa30)

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph (#u60653da6-8826-5279-8299-5c77cba5bf20)

Part 1: The Grapes

Sebastopol, California. Six months ago

The Last Straw

Regarding Henry

The Contract

The Secateurs

Sebastopol, California. 1979

Mr. McCarthy

A Guy Named Mark and a Guy Named Jesse

The Wedding Crashers

Sebastopol, California. 1984

The View from 8 A.M., the Last Sunday of the Harvest

The Wine Thief

The Ride Home

Grown, Produced, and Bottled

Part 2: The Crush

Ben and Maddie and Georgia and Jacob

Sebastopol, California. 1989

The Terroir Has a Story

The Last Family Dinner (Part 1)

Spontaneous Fermentation (and Other Ways to Lose the Love of Your Life)