Yerba Buena wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I was ready for a more traditional romance but this is more of a book about two women living life and then they happen to date eventually. That being said if you are interested in a slow introspective book about trauma and relationships(family, friends, and romantic) this book was great.

What a beautiful and poetic story. Julia Whelan's narration is perfect and really helps to bring the fantastic story to life. This is a slow modern queer romance. The story intertwines the lives of a few characters and they move in and out of each other's lives and just has a realistic feel to it. I really enjoyed this book.

What a poetic piece of work. I devoured this audiobook in a couple of days, and that wasn't solely due to my love of Julia Whelan's narration.

This is a queer story of a modern day romance between an acclaimed bartender and a woman who is dealing with the implications of the slow decline of a family member's health. At times, Yerba Buena is a frustrating read but in the most realistic way possible. The author never allows her characters to stray from their flaws and that truly reads beautifully.

I loved this.

Nina LaCour's debut into the adult realm of fiction can only be described as masterful. This book was everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Two side-by-side storylines playing out over a great distance but with such intention and grace is what made this book so special. When Sarah and Emily finally come together, the feeling of rightness is simply overwhelming.

I loved this gorgeous book with my entire heart. The audiobook narrator did a phenomenal job.

This one is read by Julia Whelan which made it an automatic listen for me. While I love and adore Ms. Whelan I think this is the first time I may have regretted listening to one of her narrations versus reading the book on the page. The reason for this is with one narrator I kept finding myself confused between the two main characters. I wish the book had been done with two narrators to help with this.

As far as the story goes it was a captivating tale of two women whose paths collide and have an immediate attraction. Both women have complex pasts that make this attraction more complicated as they try to move forward in life with the baggage from their past.

Sara ran away from home as a teenager and left behind her entire life. She made sacrifices to get where she is today, a successful, sought after bartender/consultant.

Emilie is a girl who doesn't exactly know what she wants from life. Having changed majors several times without every actually finishing a degree she is struggling to find her place.

The push and pull of the two women as they try to find themselves while trying to make room for the other made for an interesting read. Both were complex characters with trauma in their past that made for an emotional and enjoyable read.

“So this was how it felt—to be dealt a blow, to pause, to keep going in spite of it. Not to start over but to continue.”

“it gutted her, how easy she was to let go.”

yerba buena tells the stories of two women. sara, who runs away from her northern california small town at the age of sixteen after a tragedy. and emilie, in her mid twenties and still in her undergrad, trying to find her place amidst the illicit affairs she keeps finding herself in. their paths cross in yerba buena, a restaurant where sara is brought in as a consulting bartender and emilie arranges flowers. but after this crossing, years pass before these women find each other again.

when i say yerba buena is the story of these two women, i mean it is each their individual stories. so much of the book is about their individual journeys—sara from northern california to LA and back again, leaving her brother and finding him again, her coming to terms with the price she paid to run away. emilie as she goes through major and job changes to finding her passion, her relationship with her addict sister, and her creole heritage. it is a character study, an exploration of how these women become who they are. it looks at how their pasts shape them, who they are and who they will grow to be.

this is now my fifth nina lacour book, and i have come to recognize her voice. it didn’t surprise me how well she transitioned into telling an adult story. but somehow i didn’t expect /this/ story. at the same time it was so so so very nina. i could tell it was hers. it takes the same feelings you find in her other books—grief and longing and fear and being haunted—but takes it past adolescence. because these feelings don’t go away. and they live in us in different ways. now with two main characters, nina shows us these differences side by side.

one of my favorite things about yerba buena is it’s los angeles setting. this city is my home. too often i read about it incorrectly, written by someone who has never called the city home. there was so much familiarity of LA in this, and it felt so comforting to read it in such a perfect, but haunting, way.

With understated and emotive prose, Nina Lacour takes us on a journey with two women, star-crossed lovers and each dealing with so much pain and self discovery. The topics unpacked in this novel are difficult and dark, from sex work, sexual abuse, and exploitation to the exploration of queer identity. The lives of these two women are very different, but each brings her own baggage and perspective to their unique connection.

I really loved the decision to follow our main characters for a decade. Going from their teens into their twenties issues like family and identity fluxute in a person’s mind. Love and acceptance, vulnerability, it’s complicated and our perspective of those things, change as we change and grow. Nina Lacour did a lovely job of showing that struggle and transition.

What a wonderful introduction to her writing!

How gorgeous a book that breaks your heart without being annoyingly hokey about it. We root for the two main characters to get together, in spite of everything, which is a satisfying romance. But we also see them as people with desires and trauma and family and ambition beyond that. It's a refreshing read. My only regret is that I listened to the audiobook — which was gorgeous in itself — when I feel like I should have gotten a hard copy so I could underline all the beautiful sentences. It's a delight to see Nina LaCour depart from YA for a moment so she can Go There with difficult subjects without surrendering any of her heart.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review!

Don’t you love it when you finish a book so captivating and beautiful and lush and gorgeous and…and you discover the author has more books?

YERBA BUENA is Nina LaCour's first foray into adult fiction. That’s all I knew about the author – at least until I finished the book and looked her up. I don’t read much young adult fiction, but I tell you what: I’m about to.

Yes. YERBA BUENA is that good. LaCour is the award-winning writer of several young adult novels – every one of which is now on my ‘to read’ list. But back to YERBA BUENA.

Sara Foster and Emilie Dubois are each trying to transform a troubled past into something better.

Emilie is trying to decide what to do with her life. She’s spent 7 years in college and all she has to show for it are 5 (incomplete) majors – none of which have anything to do with the floral arranging job she ends up taking at a local restaurant. The restaurant is Yerba Buena – an elegant eatery with a very attractive - and very married - owner.

Emilie’s family used to be close, but her grandparents were the glue that kept the family together. When they’re gone, Emilie inherits the house and decides she’s going to bring it back to its former glory.

Sara grew up in a dysfunctional household where one parent was a drug dealer, the other an addict. Her mother finally gets clean, but not before wrecking her body; Sarah is 12 when her mom dies. With her mother gone, Sara’s friend Annie becomes everything to her. Everything. A few years after she loses her mother, though, Annie’s body is found floating in the river and Sara can’t stay in that place a minute longer. She and a friend, both teenagers, run away together toward a better future.

Fast forward several years and Sara is one of the hottest bartenders in L.A, known for her hand-crafted infusions, syrups, shrubs, and cocktails she designs based on what can only be described as a kind of atmospheric chemistry. Her home base: Yerba Buena.

One morning, Emilie is at the restaurant, arranging the flowers for that evening. Sara happens to go in early for cocktail chemistry.

The two meet and the electricity is palpable.

This is in part a love story, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about connection, family, discovery, healing, transformation, and finding home.

The icing on the cake: the audio version is narrated by the incomparable Julia Whelan.

Many thanks to #netgalley - who provided me with an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

audiobooks so the experience was probably really different than if I had read the paper copy.

This novel tells the stories of Sara and Emilie over the course of their teens and 20s. Their backgrounds and family situations are fairly different yet they both experience trauma and challenges that threaten to define their lives.

Their paths cross in Los Angeles and they experience an immediate connection. Their romance is a sweet counterpoint to the difficult experiences and feelings they need to sort through in order to feel able to embark on a meaningful relationship.

The character’s arcs felt natural to me, life really isn’t a straight path and Lacour shows Sara and Emilie as the move forward, step back, trying to make futures for themselves while reckoning with the past and their ideas about themselves.

The strongest feature of the book IMO is how the author conjures vivid colors, scents, tastes and exterior scenes. Really well done.

Will not be reading this book this month unfortunately.
This rating is not a reflection of the work but rather of the fact that other books are more of a priority on my TBR.

LaCour has written another stunner filled with absolutely gorgeous and evocative prose. I completely lost myself in this book--in the best way. I would recommend this to just about anyone.

I wanted to like this book more but couldn’t. It was just a little too slowly paced and meandering for me at the beginning, and I couldn’t get past that. The narration in the audiobook was excellent, and I felt absorbed into a part of Northern California I’m not too familiar with even as a local.

This is what I would dub a "quiet" romance. (If you must categorize it as a romance, ahem- Goodreads)

Yerba Buena follows two women, Emilie and Sara from their teens into adulthood. Emilie is struggling to find her path- still pursuing her undergrad, having rotated through multiple majors while Sara is still grappling with her rough childhood/adolescence.

They both meet through the restaurant that Sara is a bartender at, and Emilie is doing the flower arrangements. The build up to their relationship is SLOW, and I mean slow, with lots of hiccups and miscommunication. So if you're expecting a typical romance book, this one isn't for you. This book is more about the journey of the two women finding their footing and passions, and then eventually coming together as their best true selves.

Overall I enjoyed the audiobook, but feel like having two separate narrators for each MC would have elevated the experience a little more for me. This is very much a slow burn and there's not much tension or romantic scenes, and I think it's important that readers set their expectations in that aspect before reading!

There is so much emotion written in this book, you'd be hard pressed not to leave it with feelings. This was conveyed perfectly on audio - the pain of Sara, the uncertainty of Emilie - all done with glorious inflections from Julia Whelan. Yerba Buena is brought up throughout, both as a plant, a restaurant, and a general theme of growth. Sara and Emilie are so interconnected, though it becomes more clear once their paths actually intersect. I found myself identifying more with Sara's chapters, but it might be because Emilie's plight with depression hits a bit closer to home. It's art about art, be it floral design, mixology, or home renovations, but it's imperfect in the way that all art is. I can't wait to get a physical copy and reread, because I feel like there are so many nuances that I missed. It's herbacious, poignant, and perfect for contemporary readers who want a little more literary fiction in their lineup.

*Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC in exchange for my honest review*

nina lacour is the queen of sad girl books and yerba buena solidified that for me. this book had me in tears more than once.

Searching

A story of searching but not knowing what for. Being but not knowing why. Running from the past, and running from yourself.

When her life gets too hard after a tragedy occurs with her best friend and a cryptic drawing by her father, Sara runs away to Las Angeles to find a job and start a new life. Sara becomes a bartender and is known for her wonderful drinks. She has an apartment and is doing okay when she gets a call that her brother is in trouble and needs help. That is when her past catches up with her.

Emilie is a girl from a Creole family who left New Orleans to escape discrimination. She takes a job arranging flowers for a cafe named Yerba Buena. She has an affair with the married owner. When she meets Sara they both know that there is something special between them.

This is the start of a romance between the two. It is complicated and it is off and on, but they know they have something together and can't stay away from each other.

I enjoyed the strength that Sara showed and how she finally understands the drawing her father left thanks to her brother and some friends that explain what really happened to her friend. I think she showed initiative in being so young and in getting a job and supporting herself.

I think that Emilie should have been more supportive of Sara, especially when her father died, but sometimes things aren't as simple as they seem.

I listened to the audio book and the narrator did a fantastic job. The voices of the characters were very well defined. The sound quality was great and I really enjoyed her voice.

This is a romance story that you will enjoy reading. I recommend this book.

Thanks to Nina LaCour for writing a good story, to Julia Whelan for a great job narrating the book , to MacMillan Audio for publishing it and to NetGalley for making it available to me.

Get your box of tissues and self-care routine prepped and ready, because Nina LaCour is here with another book, ready to break our hearts! I’m a big fan of her YA titles and was excited to see her debut adult book, and despite telling myself to get ready for a rollercoaster of emotions, I was still not ready for this one.

If you’ve read other books by LaCour, you know to expect beautiful, heart-wrenching writing, and that’s exactly what Yerba Buena delivers. Listening to the audiobook was an incredible experience, as I was able to sit back and hear this story like it was being told from another perspective. Instead of reading a physical copy, it felt like watching from far away, which allowed me to appreciate it in a different way.

The story follows two women, Sara and Emilie, as their lives twist and turn and eventually begin to intersect. Sara ran away from home as a teenager but has made a name for herself in LA as a bartender, famous for her signature cocktails. Emilie, who has been in college for seven years, constantly switching majors, leaves a relationship she was having with her married boss in order to ground herself and her life.

The two may seem like an unlikely pair, and the universe has the same idea. Their past’s keep pulling them away from each other, but fate wants them to connect again and again.
I really enjoyed how the story flipped back and forth between the two characters and gave more background and insight about them as individuals. When they came together, their quirks played off one another and we were able to see them together, but also understand their unique differences as well. And of course, all of it tugs on your heart and kicks you right in the feelings.

Yerba Buena was everything I was expecting and explores a beautiful yet difficult relationship between two female characters. I highly recommend it!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for sending me an audio ARC via NetGalley. Yerba Buena comes out on May 31 ,2022 🌺

A heartbreaking love story full of grit, loss, learning, and well... love. It doesn't always look like what you think it might. It might not feel like what you think it should. But in the end, it does prevail.

Sara Foster and Emilie DuBois are both no strangers to loss. Sara is from Northern California's rural Russian River and Emilie is from Southern California's Long Beach. Both know what it's like to lose a loved one to substance abuse. Both know what it means to feel lost and helpless. Somehow, their twisted tales lead them to each other. But are they too damaged to accept the happiness they may find in each other?

This debut novel by Nina LaCour is exquisitely written. Haunting and. yearning and breathtaking. I was instantly drawn in by the sheer humanity of it. It's a stunning must-read.

Julia Whelan is once again magic as the narrator. I saught out this book because she would be reading it to me and I am so glad she brought it to my ears!

Nina Lacour is an amazing YA author, and with Yerba Buena, she's cemented herself as an excellent writer of adult fiction as well. This literary romance novel is everything I could ask for in a sapphic story, and I found it very relatable. I will recommend it to all of my queer female friends.
P.S. The narrator of the audiobook was really easy to listen to. The pacing of her voice was perfect too.