The Vintner's Luck, Elizabeth Knox

I found The Vintner's Luck at a thrift store last week and bought it because I saw that the author was from New Zealand and that was a country I needed to read. A couple days later I started it and I quickly realized that the setting was early 19th Century France, not New Zealand. My early thought that the book might somehow still end up in New Zealand also seemed less and less likely as I read on. But I never said the books I read had to be about the countries they were selected to represent. So, although it was about a Burgundian vintner, I can now say I've read a book from New Zealand.*

This book was so unexpected at every turn. From the very beginning, things never went how I thought they would. It all started on like page 2 when an angel showed up. I didn't know this book was about an angel. (As I said, I got it at a thrift store and I knew nothing about it.) Quite unwittingly, I found myself reading yet another book that dealt with the difficulty of immortality. Anyway, the angel showed up, I was startled, and then everything continued to surprise me for another couple hundred pages. Every time I thought I knew how things would go, I was wrong. I know I'm dwelling on this, but it was striking! I know surprising isn't actually descriptive, so let's see: this book was lovely; the relationships were complex and fascinating; it dealt with love and aging and distance very tenderly; the treatment of angels and god and issues of the afterlife was interesting. It made me want to drink wine. I may have drunk some wine while reading it. I enjoyed it!

* Fwiw, a group of tourists from New Zealand do make an appearance at the very end of the book, but the fact that they are from New Zealand is utterly irrelevant to the plot.