Portions of the novel follow her as she runs away to Los Angeles and grows into one of the city’s best bartenders.

“Yerba Buena,” intense with foggy timelines that are woven in a seemingly scattered way, begins with Sara, a 16-year-old looking for her recently missing girlfriend in a haunting small town in Northern California. In the characters’ most deciding moments, the minty scent calms and revitalizes the two characters the minty herb appears in - and sometimes leads to - magically mundane moments in this realistically heart-wrenching lovers’ tale. These two women briefly find each other in the proverbial eye of the hurricane of their tumultuous lives and choose to return to each other. In Nina LaCour’s first non-young adult novel of the same name, sprigs of the fresh-smelling plant (as well as an abstraction of the herb in the form of an eponymously-named restaurant) appear at turning points within the lives of Sara and Emilie. 'Trailblazing…One of my personal favorite authors.Yerba Buena is the Spanish name (literally translating to “good herb”) for clinopodium douglasii, a refreshingly-scented herb from the mint family that grows in abundance along the West Coast of North America. 'Trailblazing…One of my personal favorite authors.' - Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop Nina LaCour’s adult debut novel is a love story for our time. Will their love be more powerful than their pasts?Īt once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a testament to the healing qualities of a shared meal, a perfectly crafted drink, a space we claim for ourselves. But soon Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted, just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose. The morning Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, leaving behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. “A Carol for our times.” - Harper’s Bazaar

“A study of complex, modern love…Expertly illuminates the trauma that Sara and Emilie are both wrestling with, as well as their hope and healing…Lingers like a perfectly mixed cocktail.” - San Francisco Chronicle

FROM BESTSELLING AND PRINTZ-AWARD WINNING AUTHOR NINA LACOUR, PERFECT FOR READERS OF WRITERS AND LOVERS

Yerba buena a novel book review