The Vintners Luck

Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2005. Dirty marks on front cover, inscription on title page, otherwise good secondhand condition.

Burgundy, 1808. One night Sobran Jodeau, a young vintner, meets an angel in his vineyard: a physically gorgeous creature with huge wings that smell of snow, a sense of humour and an inquiring mind. Every year on the midsummer anniversary of the date, they meet again. Village life goes on, meanwhile, with its affairs and mysteries, marriages and murders, and the vintages keep improving - though the horror of the Napoleonic wars and into the middle of the century, as science marches on, viticulture changes, and gliders fly like angels. This delectably unconventional novel, rooted in earthly reality and grippingly written, engages grand and glorious themes on an intimate, human scale.