Like a Napa Valley grape ripening in the California sun, a new crop of romances in the Vino and Veritas series are ready to be harvested. Admittedly, that’s pretty labored metaphor, but how better to describe the latest (and final) batch of irresistible LGBTQ+ romances centered around an inclusive wine bar/bookstore that features stories guaranteed to deliver the happiest of HEAs?
USA Today bestselling author Sarina Bowen launched Vino and Veritas as part of the expansion of her fan-favorite True North series. With The World of True North, Sarina invited other authors to write in her established, Vermont-based universe and four new series were born. In addition to Vino & Veritas, there’s the hockey/sports romance series Moo U, coffee shop-set Busy Bean, and the food-centric Speakeasy series.
We talked to Sarina back in January as these new series were announced. She told us she’d been considering the series expansion for while. “It’s quite terrifying to let other people play in your sandbox in some ways. I had to sort of get over myself a little bit to make it happen. It’s possible that people will put words in my character’s mouth that I don’t love, and I will survive the experience, but everyone’s interpretation is fascinating and those facets are interesting to me.”
Sarina’s no stranger to gay romance, with her books The Understatement of the Year, Him, Us and this year’s Roommate. When it came to creating Vino and Veritas, she worked with couple of other authors whose books became the first in the series. “I talked with Annabeth Albert and with Garrett Leigh, two writers of LGBTQ romance who I respect so much. Together we shaped how this wine bar/bookstore would work and why. The first book in the series is called Featherbed and it’s by Annabeth. When we were talking about what kind of book it would be, she said, it’s a little bit like a Hallmark movie, gay romance in this case, with a little gritty undertone because that’s the True North series.”
Garrett Leigh wrote the second book, Heartscape, and she got to bring wine bar manager Tanner to the page. She loved the idea of seeing what he was up to through the eyes of the other writers in the series. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” Garrett said. “Because I’m not the one writing, it’s exciting because I get to find out what he’s doing and I haven’t had to sit down and write it myself. I’m in a very unique and very privileged position, in that I’ve got to contribute to it as a writer, and I also get to experience it as a reader as well. It’s amazing.”
Here’s a look at the final five books in the series.