4.75 Stars: Sotto Voce Review

"In this unique, enchanting m/m romance, Erin Finnegan has drawn engaging, lovable characters against a vivid, dramatic backdrop. Set amidst the lush vineyards and charming populace of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, Sotto Voce is a beautiful, elegantly written m/m romance that leaves a delicious aftertaste on the palate and a warm glow within the heart. I highly recommend it." —Prism Book Alliance

 

Thanks to Prism Book Alliance for this lovely review of Sotto Voce. 

Sotto Voce Among PW's Best of 2014

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I'm going to grant myself a moment of giddiness. Just a moment. I promise, it will be fleeting.

But a year ago, I never would have imagined this. And whatever happens with my future as an author, I will always be able to look back and know that this happened:

 

Interlude Press novels Forever Man and Sotto Voce are both featured in Publishers Weekly’s Starred Reviews Annual, a special edition featuring the trade magazine’s best reviewed books of the year. The edition, available as a free download, includes reviews of all 2014 books receiving PW starred reviews last year. Of the roughly 9,000 books reviewed by PW in 2014, only 1,011 received the PW Star, a coveted mark of distinction among the books reviewed by the magazine.

According to PW, “A star says many things: that the book is special in its subject matter; superior in execution, ambition, and bravery; that it’s highly readable; and that it convinces PW’s reviewers and editors that it should be singled out in its category.”

Since IP’s launch last July, five of our titles have been reviewed by PW: Forever Man, Sotto Voce, The Bones of You, Chef’s Table and Right Here Waiting. 

One of the cornerstones of IP is to publish quality books that are both well-written and beautifully designed. Congratulations to all of the authors, and our thanks to PW for the recognition.

While the original review was published months ago, this is a reminder of a moment of great happiness, and a lengthy and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has purchased and read my little book on love and wine.

Happy Thanksgiving—What are You Drinking?

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It's time to give thanks. For friends. For family. For a nice, creamy Chardonnay.

I get a lot of questions before Thanksgiving about what to pair with the turkey dinner and the rule of thumb, as always, is Drink what you like. Seriously.

For me, Thanksgiving starts at my sister's house, helping prepare the bird, which we typically baste with a cheap Chardonnay (and, later in the cook time, some Grand Marnier). The rule of thumb? One for the bird, one for the cook. 

This year, we'll break out some bubbles (Gloria Ferrer Carneros Cuvee) during the day. With dinner? A lot of people will go with a white wine with their turkey, but we like to red with supper, which is always on the savory side. That usually means Pinot Noir for us on Thanksgiving, but this year we're going to go bigger with a 2011 Chateau Montelena Zinfandel. 

We won't be sharing that one with the bird.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Greg Kennedy, Winemaker and Owner, Rhapsody Vineyards & Wine

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One in a series introducing the characters of Sotto Voce.

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Don't talk to Greg Kennedy about being the next big thing. 

Don't talk to Greg Kennedy about millennial marketing. 

In fact, if you want to talk about developing a brand name, Greg Kennedy would rather you simply not talk to him at all.

The enigmatic winemaker at the heart of Sotto Voce comes across as a bit of a loner when we first meet him, and it's by his own design. A trust fund baby with the weight of family expectations on his broad shoulders, he followed his parents' plans for his future just long enough to complete an Ivy League education, claim his trust fund and move to the remote hills of Sonoma County in California's wine country.

Sipping at the rich red wine, he shared his story of the smart kid who grew up with piano lessons and school orchestra, who came out to his family in his early teens and eventually declared his wish to pursue a degree in music. He spoke of a successful family, seemingly uncomfortable with his sexuality, who refused to subsidize a college education that wouldn’t lead to a respectable career and held both his tuition and a trust fund hostage to conformity. 

“I got accepted to Princeton, Yale and Cornell.”

“Yale has a great music program,” Tom said.

“And Cornell was furthest away,” Greg added.  

But peel back the layers of Greg Kennedy, and there's much more to him than a denim shirt and  surly attitude, much of which he actively hides. Though guardedly private, the young vintner also earns the respect of his winemaking peers, and ultimately sacrifices his privacy to help his community.

We learn that Greg is smart, caring, a little shy and more than a little lonely in the isolated hillside retreat he has built for himself—as far away from his upbringing as possible. But remnants of that world follow him to California, both in the form vintners from rival wineries as well as an attractive New York wine critic who is trying to organize a competition between the big name wineries of Napa and the artisan wineries of Sonoma.

I loved writing Greg Kennedy. He's a series of contradictions— a quiet leader, a lonely man who chooses to cut himself off from the world of his youth, and a smart guy with integrity who sometimes makes poor choices. 

He also happens to be that hot guy who doesn't entirely grasp or care about how attractive he is.

Greg is the heart of Sotto Voce, a winemaker who is passionate about his craft, and learns to be passionate about love.

 

Sotto Voce is available on Amazon, B&N.com, at the Interlude Press web store and by order from from bookstores everywhere. 

 

 

Brooding Heroes and Why We Love Them

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Unfortunately, today's tour stop at Happily Ever After Book Blog got waylaid by a hacker who took the blog offline over the weekend. So I'm going to go ahead and post today's column on brooding heroes here...

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When I first started to draft Sotto Voce in the fan community, there was a lot of talk about the Greg Kennedy character, and how he was "dark, brooding and hot."

Dark. Brooding. Hot. 

Two of those three make perfect sense when we're trying to sort out what we find attractive in a hero. But what is it about brooding men that we find so hot?

In concept, that shouldn't be an attractive character trait, not really. Because "brooding" is really just another word for "grumpy".

But here we are, time and time again, talking about "brooding heroes". And I won't lie—I fall for them like everyone else. 

So what gives? How is it that a brooding man is hot, while a grumpy man is just annoying?

I suspect that a brooding hero suggests that there is something underneath that grumpy external layer—that there is depth to his concerns. And if it's a "brooding hero," it's likely that those layers will reveal something in his back story or in his priorities that make him complex, relatable and maybe even a bit vulnerable in ways we did not first suspect.

That's certainly the case with Greg Kennedy, the winemaker in Sotto Voce. When we first meet Greg, we know him to be smart, hard-working and a bit reclusive. We also discover that he is moody, somewhat volatile, and stand-offish. But we also discover that he is generous with his colleagues, protective of the people he cares about, and yes, a bit lonely.

"That day in the vineyard, when you asked about Rhapsody being isolated?...It is. It was, especially when I was first getting my footing here. I just really felt alone," Greg tells Tom, the wine critic to whom he is drawn, confessing a long-ago fling that haunts him. "He was someone I knew, someone familiar."

And eventually, we find that there are reasons why he has isolated himself from the world, and that vulnerability is what ultimately opens him up to love.

Ah. There it is. Peel back the layers, and underneath than moodiness we find a man we can love.                                       

So for me, at least, it isn't necessarily a brooding nature that makes this character hot, but the suggestion created by his moodiness that there is something more to him that makes me want to know him more.

That, and maybe I have a thing for denim shirts, open-top trucks and dark aviator sunglasses.