Yerba Buena

Title:

Yerba Buena

Author:

Summary:

When Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, she leaves behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena and embarks on an affair with the married owner. The morning Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But the damage both women carry, and the choices they have made, pulls them apart again and again. When Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose, they must decide if their love is more powerful than their pasts. At once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a love story for our time and a propulsive journey through the lives of two women trying to find somewhere, or someone, to call home. -- Amazon.

Edition:

First U. S. edition.

Physical Description:

293 pages ; 22 cm

Genre:

Romance fiction.

Subject Term:

Restaurants -- Fiction.

Lesbians -- Fiction.

Bartenders -- Fiction.

Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction.

Women -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Flatiron Books,

Publication Date:

2022

ISBN:

9781250810465

Publication Information:

New York : Flatiron Books, 2022.

Call Number:

LACOUR

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003615344	Adult Fiction	LACOUR Nina	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

FROM BESTSELLING AND PRINTZ-AWARD WINNING AUTHOR NINA LACOUR, PERFECT FOR READERS OF WRITERS AND LOVERS

"A study of complex, modern love...Expertly illuminates the trauma that Sara and Emilie are both wrestling with, as well as their hope and healing...Lingers like a perfectly mixed cocktail." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"A Carol for our times." -- Harper's Bazaar

Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, leaving behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena.

The morning Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But soon Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted, just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose. Will their love be more powerful than their pasts?

At once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a testament to the healing qualities of a shared meal, a perfectly crafted drink, a space we claim for ourselves. Nina LaCour's adult debut novel is a love story for our time.

"Trailblazing...One of my personal favorite authors." -- Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop

Author Notes

Nina LaCour is the award-winning and bestselling author of several novels for young adults, including We Are Okay, a Printz Award winner and national bestseller. She lives in San Francisco with her wife and daughter. Yerba Buena is her first novel for adults.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In LaCour's solid adult debut (after the YA novel Watch Over Me), two Los Angles women navigate the uncertainties of their 20s and their complicated pasts. Sara Foster ran away from home at 16 after her girlfriend died under mysterious circumstances that may have involved Sara's family. Now she's a bartender whose signature cocktails are in high demand at the popular restaurant Yerba Buena. Emilie Dubois, who is part Creole, spent her early life as the "steady daughter" and "good girl," but with a sister in and out of rehab, her parents getting divorced, and her grandmother dying, she begins to search for her authentic self rather than continue passing as white and straight. After Emilie takes a job designing flowers at Yerba Buena, she embarks on an affair with the married owner, Jacob Lowell, while Sara occasionally takes home women from the bar. Though the chemistry is palpable between Emilie and Sara, the story turns out to be less about a love affair than what the women each need for themselves. Sometimes the alternating points of view between Sara and Emilie feel interchangeable, but LaCour writes with beauty and clarity about how a relationship is not a substitute for the characters' mutual need to love themselves. This doesn't break new ground, but it gets the job done. (Feb.)

Library Journal Review

Sara Foster flees home at age 16 and eventually ends up as a popular (if slightly mysterious) bartender at the Los Angeles restaurant Yerba Buena. When directionless undergraduate Emilie Dubois takes a job arranging flowers at the restaurant , the connection between her and Sara sizzles. But can love conquer all, including the troublesome past? A first adult novel from Printz Award-winning YA author LaCour; with a 150,000-copy first printing.