Kerri Maher, the bestselling author of THE PARIS BOOKSELLER, invites readers to sun-drenched, love-filled 1967 San Francisco in SUMMER OF LOVE.

Sisters Miranda and Winnie Hartley couldn’t be more different. Born into a vintner family, they have long heard their parents’ stories of learning the craft of growing grapes and making wine in Paris on their yearlong honeymoon. With California’s --- and the rest of the United States’ --- ability to produce alcohol effectively still “flattened” by Prohibition, their folks have chosen to take the risky venture of starting their own vineyard. 

Boasting highly cultivated varietals that speak to Parisian grandeur and history, Hartley Vineyard has slowly begun making a name for itself, even dodging bad press and rumors about the tragic suicide of the girls’ father. Since then, Miranda has assumed the mantle of running the business alongside her mother. Feisty, free-loving Winnie dreams of launching her career as a poetess, moving to San Francisco, and experiencing all that the “summer of love” has to offer.

While Miranda has taken to running the vineyard like a pro, even going so far as to earn a science degree to help her craft finer, more unique brews, Winnie has immersed herself in the counterculture of the 1960s: smoking weed, going braless, engaging in free sex, and cobbling together a life built on art and free trade. From a political standpoint, Winnie’s newfound freedom also has broadened her worldview, exposing her to the exploitation of migrant workers and the need for unionization --- including on her own family’s vineyard.

"An intoxicating blend of sunshine, secrets and sisterhood, SUMMER OF LOVE will be a hit with beach readers, book clubbers, and anyone who wishes to visit the titular era --- whether again or for the first time."

Miranda knows that their business could not survive without Emilio, their head grower, who seems to feel respected and content in his role. But she also acknowledges that the only reason her family is able to pay their migrant workers a fair wage is that their operation is so small. The more she learns about the area that her family calls both home and office, she is struck by the knowledge that men like her father could swoop in and start a business, while men like Emilio, born on the very land they now till, could not.

In alternating chapters, we meet Miranda’s daughter, Dawn, who is experiencing her own era of tumult, though it is all her own. One year ago, Dawn's longtime boyfriend dumped her, and her problem with alcohol spiraled out of control --- culminating in “the incident” of six months ago, a night so horrific that it prompted her to seek sobriety. But life as a single, unfulfilled forty-something woman is not easy, especially without a glass of wine to seek at the end of the night. More than that, though, she is aware of the hypocrisy she feels. How can she, the daughter of one of the most famous and successful female vintners on the West Coast, stop drinking the very product that raised her? And what will it do to her relationship with her mother?

Rather than dwell, Dawn dives into her work as a set designer, even though what she really wants is to produce her own movies. When a new gig asks Dawn to transform a woman’s home into the setting of a popular series of children’s books for her niece’s birthday party, Dawn procures the first installment, Phoebe and the Burning Vines, and is surprised by what she finds.

The series, which seems like a bit of a mashup of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE and THE HUNGER GAMES, includes numerous references to vineyards and wine, specifically Hartley Vineyard. The books are famous for having an anonymous author, so Dawn is forced to fill in the blanks. Is the writer someone she knows? Is it the father she has never known and whom her mother refuses to discuss? Her grandparents and aunt died long before she was born, so this seems to be the only feasible answer.

Alternating between Dawn’s present-day timeline and that of Miranda and Winnie in 1967, Kerri Maher unfolds three unique coming-of-age dramas. Miranda and Winnie find themselves further at odds when Winnie takes up with a charming musician and watches as their artistic careers flourish, while Miranda, devoted to the vineyard, must remain single and give up her love of painting in order to remain focused. Dawn, along with her sober bestie, embarks on a journey to find the author of the Vineland series. She also hopes to find herself, or at least a version of herself that is willing to acknowledge and accept her addictive tendencies, even if it means carving out a life separate from her mother and their family lore. 

Connecting each story --- aside from the shared lineage --- are themes of the power of storytelling, loving without innocence, honoring the truth, and, perhaps most poignant of all, what it means to see ourselves in another and if we like what we see reflected back. All of this is framed by sumptuous, heady descriptions of the summer of love --- when peace, music, the earth, the human body and humanity itself were not just championed but idolized, and love seemed enough to fuel it all.

Though SUMMER OF LOVE invites you in with its steamy descriptions of free love, Maher hides within its peace signs and free-flowing drugs a powerful story of addiction and recovery. Paired with the present-day setting of a literal vineyard, this seems like a risky concoction at first, but it is handled with aplomb. Maher presents a multifaceted look at a complex subject without ever demonizing or celebrating its source: mind-altering substances, usually wine in this case.

By giving her characters the gift of art --- be it winemaking, painting, science, writing or set design --- Maher celebrates the power of storytelling and exemplifies for her readers how transformative an act it can be, demonstrating the myriad ways it can jump-start one’s life through her naturally gifted characters. Lovers of books about books also will delight in the story-within-a-story format as Dawn explores passages of the Vineland series and Winnie’s 1967 journals come to light, allowing her to explain herself to readers directly while also portraying Miranda in a new light. 

An intoxicating blend of sunshine, secrets and sisterhood, SUMMER OF LOVE will be a hit with beach readers, book clubbers, and anyone who wishes to visit the titular era --- whether again or for the first time.