My lovely writing friend, Lucinda Race, has just published ( TODAY!) the third installment in her Crescent Lake Winery series, BLUSH.
Friends to lovers to friends…to lovers?
For Peyton Brien, working as the manager of the tasting room at Crescent Lake Winery is more than a job. It’s her passion. The single mother’s other passion is her seven-year-old son. Years before, she’d had those same feelings for the winery owner’s son, Jack. She’d thought they had a forever kind of love—until he moved away and broke her heart. But now he’s back. Friends to lovers to friends again. They’ve agreed the past is the past. But is it?
Jack Price ran to California to escape from the future his father saw for him. His passion isn’t business; it’s working about the grape vines. The years away didn’t change that, and they didn’t change Jack’s love for Peyton. And now her hero-worshipping son is wrapping himself around Jack’s heart as well. But just as Peyton and Jack’s relationship begins to sprout new tendrils of hope, a secret from Jack’s past threatens to destroy his dreams.
They’re long past the sweet blush of first love. But just as red and white wines blend to form a blush wine, can Peyton and Jack find a way to blend their pasts and their present to create a rosy new future?
And if you haven’t read books 1 and 2, don’t worry. Here they are:
Romance and fine wine both need time to breathe…
Her family’s successful winery business in the Finger Lakes region of New York should have gone to Tessa Price. She’d always dreamed of running the winery, but when her brother, the prodigal son returns to take up the reins, she boldly strikes out on her own, purchasing Sand Creek Winery—a cash-strapped competitor—right out from under her family. She can forge her own destiny, using her marketing skills and big plans to bring new life to the small winery. But first she has a proposition for the sexy previous owner. And he’s likely to hate it.
Kevin “Max” Maxwell would never have willingly sold his winery to anyone named Price. Family always comes first, and if paying for his sister’s cancer treatment cost him his business, it was worth it. But when the new owner offers him a one-year contract to stay on as general manager, with a possible bonus, he really can’t afford to turn it down. He can ignore the effect her deep brown eyes and heart-shaped face have on his senses for a year, can’t he?
Relationships, like slowly ripening vineyards, take time. But Max has been keeping a secret from Tessa, one that could destroy her hopes for their future. Will a terrible accident force Tessa and Max to face how much they have to lose, or tear apart their budding relationship forever? Sometimes a romance is like a fine wine. To be its best, it just needs time to breathe.
He’s just the spark she needs…
Anna Price is an enologist, a world-renowned expert in anything having to do with wine. Her work at her family’s Crescent Lake Winery in the Finger Lakes region of New York has her feeling as if she’s treading water. There has to be more to life than just wine. Has she lost her spark? She’s jolted when her father suffers a heart attack, then gets a jolt of a different kind from the man taking care of him.
Colin Grant is a nurse practitioner specializing in the care of cardiac patients. He’d met Anna once before, but had just ended a long-distance relationship and wasn’t ready for someone new. But this time, it’s different. There’s no denying his attraction to the curvy girl who has no idea how beautiful she is.
When Anna is offered a job in France, they may find their growing relationship crushed. How can she say no to the offer of a lifetime? Colin’s job is caring for other people’s hearts; he’s determined not to have his own broken again. Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. But is it worth the risk for a lifetime of love?
ABout Lucinda Race:
Award winning author Lucinda Race writes about family, love and happily ever afters.
Award-winning author Lucinda Race is a lifelong fan of romantic fiction. As a young girl, she spent hours reading romance novels and getting lost in the hope they represent. While her friends dreamed of becoming doctors and engineers, her dreams were to become a writer—a romance novelist.
As life twisted and turned, she found herself writing nonfiction but longed to turn to her true passion. After developing the storyline for The Loudon Series, it was time to start living her dream. Her fingers practically fly over computer keys as she weaves stories about strong women and the men who love them.
Lucinda lives with her husband and their two little dogs, a miniature long hair dachshund and a shitzu mix rescue, in the rolling hills of western Massachusetts. When she’s not at her day job, she’s immersed in her fictional worlds. And if she’s not writing romance novels, she’s reading everything she can get her hands on. It’s too bad her husband doesn’t cook, but a very good thing he loves takeout.
Please visit her website lucindarace.com and sign up for her newsletter and don’t forget to follow her on social media.
Peggy Jaeger, Author 