Dear AGENT,
I'm currently seeking representation for my first novel, TO TASTE THE STARS. Inspired by the true story of Veuve Clicquot, the book (complete at 105,000 words) traces five generations of women through the lead-up and immediate aftermath of two world wars as they turn their family business into the world's most glamorous house of Champagne. The story will appeal to readers of Kate Quinn's The Alice Network, Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, and Martha Hall Kelly's Lilac Girls. I hope you will agree that I'd make a good addition to your list.
When Marianne Talbotier’s father, the scion of France’s most prestigious house of Champagne, commits suicide in 1900, he leaves her mother Eleanor with a choice. Should she do what it is assumed she will and allow someone else to run the family business, or defy society’s expectations and take the reins herself?
With the help of her husband’s vintner, Eleanor accepts her new role as the head of Maison Talbotier. But the vintner is an abusive and bitter man, and when he violently attacks his own son, René, Marianne kills him while trying to save her friend. Bonded by the secret of the vintner's death, René and Marianne become each other’s closest confidantes. René doesn’t reciprocate Marianne’s desire for more, however, and so eventually, Marianne has a choice of her own to make. Widows may inherit property, but unmarried women cannot; to keep Maison Talbotier, Marianne marries a childhood friend, Viktor.
Viktor is German, though, and is expelled from France as World War I looms. When he returns as weinführer at the outbreak of World War II, bent on revenge and responsible for ensuring that Reims' best Champagne ends up in Nazi hands, Marianne is faced with one last choice: reconcile with Viktor and save herself from the hardships of occupation, or maintain her independence and risk his wrath?
For Marianne’s daughter Delphine, the decision is easy. Horrified to learn that her father is a Nazi, she organizes Reims’ Champagne producers in resistance. Working together with the other women of Maison Talbotier, Marianne and Delphine find that standing up for yourself doesn’t mean standing alone, and Marianne, Delphine, and Delphine’s baby daughter Aurelie survive to celebrate the end of the war.
I am a communications professional and a life-long Francophile, having spent several months surfing in Biarritz, cutting wild lavender on a mountainside farm outside Grasse, and studying at the Sorbonne. And while my French remains regrettable, I try to make up for it with my prodigious consumption of Champagne.
Thank you for your consideration.
