Lush is a wine-soaked novel about what happens when four people are invited to the home of a Master Sommelier to drink one of the oldest bottles of wine in the world. There's Avery, a sommelier who makes most of her money as an influencer despite the reputational damage; Cosmo, a young Master Sommelier who was once the one to watch out for, but now is dogged by scandal; Sonny, who owns a popular wine brand that lacks prestige; and Maëlys, a critic who sees herself as separate to the others but has her own secrets. As they gather with the Master Sommelier and his husband, everyone spends days drinking, building up to the climax of the famous bottle, but they won't get through it unchanged.

I've enjoyed the recent influx of literary fiction that uses food and drink as part of the tapestry of the novel, so I was expecting Lush to be similar. It is in some ways, but it becomes far less about the wine and more about the people, an exploration of people with little in common except wine come together and face their lives. It is written in a hazy style that really suits the narrative, particularly how much the book says (or actively avoids saying) about alcohol and alcoholism, and that's perhaps the standout element for me, the sharp look at how a professional relationship to wine might change your relationship to drinking alcohol, or not. There's not a huge amount of plot, as might be expected from literary fiction focused on characters, and by following the four outsiders, you don't see much of the house's owners or know much about them, which again feels very intentional for the story being told.

This novel wasn't quite what I expected from it, neither a focus on the wine itself nor a scandalous plot, but rather something about the messiness of people and the disappointment of important moments. It feels ideal if you want a book for lazing around in summer, maybe on holiday, but you prefer literary fiction to actual "beach reads".