Love the Wine You're With

Book excerpt: Three best friends decide to open a wine bar in Echo Park LA, where they encounter the trials and tribulations of dating, love, and life in Kim Gruenenfelder's Love the Wine You're With. "Balancing moments of profound wisdom with pithy observations, Love the Wine You’re With will brighten your day faster than a glass of chardonnay.” —Jennifer Lancaster, New York Times bestselling author of Bitter Is the New Black and The Tao of Martha “Gruenenfelder’s women are smart, likable and good to each other.” —Kirkus Reviews Jessie is finally about to realize her life-long goal of owning her own house, the first step to a wonderful marriage, kids, and life with her boyfriend of three years, Kevin; except after they find the perfect place, Kevin suddenly gets cold feet. Nat is having a passionate affair with her gorgeous British boss Marc—unfortunately, he’s married. Now what? Holly is an actress who still waits tables to pay the bills, and who is coping with the recent loss of her father. A particularly bad audition, where she snaps and tells off a big director, leads her to wonder what to do when you stop loving what you do. (And also what to do about her hot neighbor. Because, you know, hot neighbor.) After each girl finishes a particularly awful workday, the three friends meet at their favorite wine bar, which has been sold by its owner for a huge profit and will close that night. In a moment of tipsy brazenness, Jessie suggests that the three of them open their own wine bar in the gentrifying Echo Park area of Los Angeles. An unapologetically girly place for good wine and good friends—which leads to a challenge for each woman: how do you fix a life that’s not actually broken, but needs an upgrade?