Vintage Attraction

July 8, 2013
Blackstone’s second novel follows the wine-infused romance of Peter Hapworth, self-described “Conceptualist, Teacher, Chicagoan, Swashbuckler, Eater, Drinker, Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker,” and sommelier Isabelle Conway, star of her own television show, Vintage Attraction. When Peter guests on her show, he winds up with a date, and the two embark on a whirlwind courtship. Izzy’s world is a glamorous one, in contrast to Peter’s drab academic circles and lackluster dating life. In five weeks, their courtship runs its course through Chicago’s restaurant scene, culminating with their hasty elopement. But while Izzy’s fortunes rise, Peter is fired from his teaching job and pulled back into an old relationship. When Izzy’s friend Pacer Rosencrants begins to pursue her, Peter begins to question his bond with Izzy. To test their love, he follows her on a wine tour of Santorini, Greece. Blackstone has created a likable protagonist in Peter, and a worthy love interest in Izzy, toying with the dynamic of pursuer and pursued. His wine world knowledge is impressive, but the story is riddled with clunky wine world puns among otherwise confident prose. However, the boy meets girl, gets girl, loses girl story he tells is a familiar one that the wine world does little to enliven. Agent: Ryan Harbage, Fischer-Harbage Agency.

September 15, 2013
A romance built on fine wine threatens to go sour in this light novel with a lot of snarky undertones. Peter, the narrator of the second novel by Blackstone (The Week You Weren't Here, 2005), is a bright 30-something man with a go-nowhere adjunct gig teaching composition at a Chicago university who spends his spare time with his pug and imagines punny, unworkable concepts for restaurants. Despite this lassitude, he manages to win the love of Isabelle, a local celebrity TV-show host who demystifies wine for the masses. Their love blossoms fast--they tie the knot within weeks--but so does trouble: Peter is increasingly running afoul of his bosses, their new condo loft has high-volume neighbors, and an old flame appears to have insinuated himself back into Izzy's life. This is all in service of what's meant to be a comic work of commercial fiction, down to the adorable dog and the make-or-break trip to Greece in the novel's closing chapters. But the book too often feels contrived on the structural and sentence level: Drowsy scenes of parties and tastings are engineered to work in pairing tips but do little to propel the story; the conflicts among Peter, Izzy and her domineering manager are overdramatized and unrealistic; and Izzy's character feels flimsy, her up-from-her-bootstraps back story notwithstanding. Those flaws are exacerbated by stretches of clunky prose. ("Breakfast at one thousand six hundred sixty meters was an alluring and jeopardous bounty.") Blackstone's attempts to give Peter a kind of emotional reckoning are half-hearted at best (indeed, his sniffy solipsism is often presented as a kind of badge of honor) and essentially abandoned by the end thanks to a forced and disappointing deus ex machina plot turn. Blackstone is a witty writer with a great subject, but the plot and tone of his story feels unfinished.

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September 1, 2013

Peter Hapworth is a 37-year-old part-time adjunct lecturer trying to pay off two grad degrees when he starts a relationship with wine expert and television persona Isabella Conway; through her, he comes to know wine, love, and adult responsibility. After dating just five months, he's now married, co-owner of a pug, and cosigner on a mortgage for the couple's Chicago loft. When career issues, neighbors from hell, and ex-lovers threaten to cork their marriage, Peter and Isabella take off on a wine trip to Greece in search of inspiration. Blackstone's rendering of a disgruntled hipster-slacker-intellectual in the character of Peter is authentic and humorous; the amusing scenes involving academia are written with brilliance and insight. Peter's ex-lover Talia brings a fun element, and Isabella is well drawn, but Peter's first-person point-of-view intellectualisms take precedence over passion. There is a lot about wine; for readers who aren't interested in enology (this word is used in the book several times), the wine descriptions might feel slow. VERDICT Readers of literary fiction who are interested in wine or the Chicago setting will especially like this second novel (after The Week You Weren't Here) by the managing editor of Bookslut.com.--Sonia Reppe, Stickney-Forest View P.L., IL

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013
Blackstone's debut novel traces the whirlwind courtship, hasty elopement, and rocky first weeks of marriage of Peter Hapworthan unfulfilled adjunct literature professor at a Chicago community collegeand Isabelle Izzy Conwaya celebrity sommelier with her own TV show, Vintage Attraction. The reader is regaled with glimpses into the glamorous world of wine marketingfrom symposiums and cocktail parties to wine festivals across the country, where Izzy is treated like visiting royalty. Peter quits his lackluster teaching job, giving him more time to hone his skills as a restaurant conceptualist. Former lovers threaten to undermine the couple's newly forged bond, but an all-expenses-paid wine tour of Greece brings them even closer and becomes the inception of their own unique wine storethe reincarnation of Vintage Attraction. Blackstone, who is married to a sommelier, repeatedly makes an effort to equate forging a relationship with making fine wine, ensuring that for those with a taste for both light literary romance and a glass of crisp Assyrtiko, this is an excellent match.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)