
The story is constantly jumping back and forth between the years 19. After seeing an ad in the paper, he buys, on a whim, a house in France and moves to the tiny village of Lansquenet to get away from it all. Jay is listless and meandering, writing story after story without conviction, drinking more than he should, and smoking whenever Kerry isn’t around.

Whatever love existed between Jay and Kerry disappeared years ago, and they stay together for convenience more than anything else. Kerry is an obnoxious attention-seeker who is constantly schmoozing with the rich and famous to make herself more rich and famous. He’s an author with a single bestselling novel to his name and survives by writing “sci-fi rubbish” and living off the assets of his girlfriend TV-star, Kerry. The wine in question belongs to our central character, Jay Mackintosh. Each wine is treated almost as if each bottle was its own character, with unique personalities and flavors. Wine is actually subject of major importance throughout the book (it does take place in France, after all). I wasn’t kidding when I said that the meta narrator is a literal bottle of wine. As it is, I’d put I think “slice of life” is the best approximation for this story. If “mid-life crisis” was a genre, I put it in there. It’s not a love story, despite the love and romance that plays out. It’s not a murder mystery, despite the fact that there is a murder/suicide (I won’t spoil which it turns out to be). It’s not urban fantasy, despite the fantastical elements. It’s hard for me to classify what “Blackberry Wine” is.

So I chucked them both to the side and opened the third novel, “Blackberry Wine”.Īnd when the narrator turned out to be a literal bottle of wine, I was hooked. If it takes active willpower to continue reading a book, then it’s a poorly written book, no matter who the author may be. Then I actually opened the books and found them a slog. Pulp sci-fi with hand-painted cover art? Yes, please! I had only vaguely heard of Edgar Rice Burroughs and had never heard of E. The first two I picked completely arbitrarily by their cover art and thought they would be right up my alley.

Smith, and “Blackberry Wine” by Joanne Harris (Sing it with me, one of these things is not like the other~). Anyway, I ended up picking out three books to read recently: “The Warlord of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Skylark DuQuesne”, by E. Like when I tried out Pla圜roco Online Casino that one time. That’s why, even though I am an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy novels, I sometimes step out of my comfort zone to try something else. The full quote reads, “Variety is the spice of life, that gives it all its flavor”. It originates from a poem written in 1785 by William Cowper, called “The Task”. There’s a famous quote, “Variety is the spice of life”.
