The Shortest Way Home: A Novel

While taking a weekend trip with her boyfriend, Ethan, Hannah Greene falls in love with the Sonoma wine country. The vacation should mark the last weeks of college and the beginning of their future together in New York, but Hannah has a sudden change of heart, as an offer of a job becomes available at a winery they visit. She makes the life-altering decision to stay behind in California and abandon her dreams of New York. With unhappy memories of her childhood, Hannah begins to help the failing winery and begins to see herself and her hopes and dreams in a new light.

The overall feel of the novel is one of a lighthearted summer read. The pleasant California wine country scenes are beautifully set and well described to give a sense of show more place. The plot of the book is encouraging and warm. And I always love a book where the main female character is strong enough to walk away without needing a man in her life to fill her sense of self worth. However, this just wasn't a great read for me. There was a sub plot dealing with the owners of the winery that seemed extraneous of the main point of the book and didn't seem to fit. Hannah wasn't very likable. Her immaturity for her age (she came across as more in her early 20's than the 30 that she is) and her unhappiness over growing up poor grated on my nerves at time. I was also uncomfortable with the author's assumption that Hannah's mother, while living in a small town, couldn't understand the basic logic that a job as an executive's assistant at Tiffany's didn't mean that Hannah was wearing diamonds all the time. Also, there was what seemed to be a discrepancy with Hannah's age. While the book seemed to be set in present day time with the mention of social media like Instagram, she mentions that Hannah enjoyed making mix tapes from the Weekly Top 40 when she was 11 with some of her favorite songs being "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Tainted Love". Not sure those work for the time frame.

Overall, this was only a 3 star read for me and was possible on the lower end of that rating. Thank you to the publisher, Dutton, for the advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. show less

Oh, how I loved THE SHORTEST WAY HOME by Miriam Parker! It’s the story of Hannah, a young woman on the verge of finishing her MBA at Berkeley who, along with her boyfriend Ethan, has her life all planned out. They’ll move to New York, start their careers, and have children that Hannah will quit work to raise. She’s all in until she walks into a winery and realizes that the whole New York thing isn’t really her dream – it’s Ethan’s. She decides to stay at the winery to see if she can figure out what her dream is. This book is about relationships – family, friends, and love – as well as finding oneself. It’s infused with wit and humor and lots of tidbits about wine. I’m not a wine drinker but reading about it in THE show more SHORTEST WAY HOME made me wish I were. This book comes out in July of 2018 and I adored it so much, I’ve already pre-ordered a finished copy. I think it’s perfect for book clubs and I hope I can talk mine into reading it next fall.

Miriam Parker is one of the first publishing people I met after starting my blog. She was living in Blacksburg at the time and Vance was a student at Virginia Tech so I would try to squeeze in a few minutes with her whenever we visited Vance. She’s moved since then and Vance has graduated but Miriam and I still exchange the occasional email. I don’t think knowing her influenced my opinion of the book – as a matter of fact, I think I read it more critically, especially at the beginning, because of it. Order a copy of this book or get your library to – you won’t be disappointed! show less

Hannah thinks she’s on track to get exactly what she’s always wanted. But one unexpected stop at a winery changes everything.

Hannah and her boyfriend are moving back to NYC. She is about to start an extremely coveted job. He is starting a tech project with his closest friends. And Hannah is pretty sure he’s about to propose. They’ve been together two years and he is exactly the type of guy she thinks she should marry. And she’ll be incredibly wealthy and that has appealed to her since her childhood.

But when they stop at the winery everything changes because Hannah can see a new life right in front of her eyes. After a little chat with the winery owners about how they could improve business, they offer Hannah a job.
Pros and show more cons:
It pays way less.
It’s in California
Free wine
Free room and board
She’s pretty sure her boyfriend won’t stay

I absolutely loved the premise. I loved the setting. I even loved that the author included food and wine pairings. I even took a few of the suggestions and enjoyed the book with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and brownies with sea salt.

Here’s what I didn’t love. Hannah.
I feel like I can forgive more in a storyline when I love the characters. It’s the characters we are supposed to love. This isn’t a book where I felt like this was supposed to be a “hate to love” lead character or even a “likable villain”. I felt like I was supposed to like Hannah and I didn’t.

I felt that Hannah was cruel to her boyfriend.
If she chose to leave him unexpectedly after two years together, that’s fine. That’s not what bothered me.
She treated him so badly and unkindly. She avoided his phone calls. If he came to see her, she avoided him in person. Didn’t answer his texts. Didn’t call him when someone said he looked homeless.
If this storyline were reversed and a male character was treating the female lead like that, we’d be screaming “dump him!” At our books.

In addition, she avoids her mother’s calls.
She listens to her mom’s phone messages but doesn’t call her back.
She’s really quick to assume her mom is judging her but it’s definitely the pot calling the kettle black.

And she has no friends because she openly admits that she can’t keep up contact when it’s not convenient.

Hannah is selfish.
I wasn’t totally thrilled by the winery owner either.

I hate saying negative things about a book. I did really enjoy the concept and the setting. I just struggle with not liking the main character. show less

It’s hard to believe we’ve come to the unofficial end of summer. Why do summers go by so fast, and winters drag on? If you want to hang on to a little bit more of summer, this month’s Book Report has a few books that will help you do that.

Miriam Parker’s delightful debut novel, “The Shortest Way Home,” begins as Hannah and her boyfriend, Ethan, are celebrating their impending business school graduation with a trip through Sonoma wine country before their move to New York City, where Hannah will begin a coveted job at Goldman Global Investment Research.

They end up at a lovely small family-owned winery, Bellosguardo, where Hannah becomes enchanted by Tannin, the family dog, and the beautiful setting. Hannah strikes up a show more conversation with the owner’s son, William, and after awhile, she begins to brainstorm some terrific ideas to drum up more business for the small winery.

Hannah is the kind of person who likes to talk to the locals to find out where the best places are; Ethan likes to research and plan, and follow that plan to the letter. Ethan prefers to observe, Hannah prefers to interact.

Hannah can’t get the small winery out of her head, and when she discovers that she left her wallet at the winery, she returns and meets William’s mother, Linda, who offers Hannah a summer job at the winery working on marketing.

Her excitement gets the best of her, and Hannah decides to take the job, which doesn’t pay much, but allows her to live in a sweet little cottage at the winery. Ethan is dumbfounded that Hannah is willing to give up a high-paying job in New York to work at the small winery. He is also concerned what this will do to their relationship, as he loves Hannah and hopes to marry her.

I adored “The Shortest Way Home.” If you are a wine lover, as I am, this book is for you. It will have you planning a trip to beautiful wine country, or in the case of central New Yorkers, heading over to one of the many lovely local wineries in the Finger Lakes region to taste the best of what it has to offer.

I also think Parker realistically portrays the difficulties of owning a small family business, and the incredibly hard work it is to keep a business afloat. I related to Hannah and Ethan’s habit of looking at a business and coming up with ways to make it more successful (my husband and I like to do that, too).

“The Shortest Way Home” is the perfect book to end with this summer. Pour a glass of your favorite white wine, take it out to your comfy front porch chair and settle in for an enchanting read. show less

The Shortest Way Home by Miriam Parker
Source: NetGalley and Overdrive Audio/Public Library
My Rating: 2½/5 stars

**MINI-REVIEW**

The Bottom Line: I struggled with this book and had I not listened to it, I most certainly would have added this title to my DNF list. With the exception of the dog, I found every major character in the book to be tremendously selfish and hard to like. While I completely appreciate circumstances led to so many of each character’s decisions, they had choices and each often made the wrong decision and simply caused more hurt, resentment, and anger to fester. With so many years of negative energy swirling around, it isn’t a great surprise the tone of this book is relatively depressing. So, why didn’t I DNF show more this book? Because I really liked the setting, all the information about the wine, winemaking, and the vineyard, and the steps taken to make the setting so much more than it has been for so many years. Had the setting been populated with more likeable, sympathetic characters, I most certainly would have assigned a far higher star rating. As this is the author’s debut novel, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water. From a technical perspective, there is nothing wrong with this book, and I think, given time, Miriam Parker will be a very good author. show less

The story wasn't bad but there was something about the writing style that felt off to me. I like that the female MC put herself first once she realized what she wanted but it still felt like something was missing. I can't quite put my finger on what the problem (for me) is.

I can't believe I read the whole thing. This was a very light read, full of great descriptions of wine vintages and pairings. But, I didn't connect very well with the main character, Hannah and her quick choices about her life. In this debut novel, she decides, on basically the eve of her Business School graduation (job at Goldman Sachs already lined up) to work at a winery that appealed to her while on a end of the year school trip with her longtime boyfriend. He is a bit confused, but as with many of the characters, not particularly memorable.