A Vintage Affair

4.5 because I wanted it to be longerI got an audio collection of [a:Josh Lanyon 359194 Josh Lanyon https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1289326144p2/359194.jpg] novelettes, some of which I already owned in print. I've been saving and doling them out like precious nectar because that's what they are, now with the added bonus of perfect audios. This story was narrated by [a:Chris Gebauer 16676626 Chris Gebauer https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and he was perfect as Austin and gave the rest of the cast nuanced inflections perfectly conveying the sometimes arch dialogue.Austin Gillespie, a Master of Wine, has come to Ballineen, the ancestral home of the Cashel family, in the small town of Madison in Georgia to appraise their wine cellar and perhaps find some priceless bottles belonging to General R.E. Lee. Before you cans say “sweet tea” Austin is surrounded by a cast of characters plucked from the the southern greats like Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, or William Faulkner only most of these folks are more ‘picturesque'. Deliberately so. They are perfectly aware of how people perceive them, particularly ‘foreigners' and play up to the stereotype perhaps as a form of defiance. In the mix is the somewhat mysterious Jeff Brady, oblique by choice, gorgeous by nature. It wouldn't be a Josh story without a dead body and we've got one but the who it is or how it got dead is merely a vehicle for Austin's voyage of discovery, even if the voyage is mostly internal. Like the master story teller that she is Josh shows us who Austin is and how he got to this stage of his life. Austin is at a crossroads with no clear path forward and suddenly things change. Big Time. Yes he may be on the road to a HEA by the end, more like HFN with strong possibilities, but the grander changes are those within him and how he values and sees himself. Turns out he's much stronger and braver than he thinks and if there's any doubt ask Jeff. When he thought he was enlightening Austin he was the one getting schooled, quietly and without fanfare, but schooled nonetheless. I loved all the characters particularly Carson and Ernest who are unequivocally themselves without reference to anyone's opinion. #LifeGoalsRecommended to everyone. Always.