I loved so much about this book. First, it feels *very* intimate. The characters each have so many layers and we really get to know them throughout the novel. The setting was gorgeous, of course, and felt exciting and unique.

The first 2/3 of the story was paced perfectly and kept me wanting to read more. However, the third act breakup felt extremely abrupt and then extended too long. 11 months of essentially no contact felt unrealistic and almost off putting. The resolution was also a little too short for me. Otherwise, I think this will be THE book of the summer and I’m excited to recommend it to all my friends.

So I was fortunate enough to get an ARC of this through NetGalley, and I wish I had better things to say about this book but I don't. It seemed like a 300+ page book on describing the remodel of a French chateau. Fagan does a lovely job of describing the lux items that this chateau has (i.e food, decor, gardening, and the amount of times she mentioned a rehabbed sconce for god sakes!) was great, but everything else missed the mark.

There was ZERO character development. I feel like as I was reading, I didn't know any character. Lea, the main character, felt unlikable and so type A. I didn't find any redeeming qualities about her. Additionally, all the character driven plot lines (i.e the romance, family feud) were vague and repetitive.

I wish that Fagan spent more time developing characters (both good and bad) than describing the importance of wallpaper in this novel. I finished this book (after getting lost on multiple pages and having to reread several passages due to the descriptive nature) and was happy to move onto the next.

5/5🌟
2/5🌶

I've been on the hunt for the perfect romantic beach read...and I think I may have found it. This is THE perfect beach read.
The setting was what lured me into reading this book. I was transported into the French chateau where I was sitting poolside sipping on delicious wine and soaking up the sun. Along with the luscious scenery descriptions, Chelsea Fagan's depictions of the food and clothing was alluring.

This book's female protagonist Lea, is a woman driven by passion. She desires control and most people go to her for for support within their own life. As Lea's summer progressed, so did her blossoming romance. There was a thrill when Lea indulged in a secretive relationship with her boss's much younger son, Théo.
Their relationship was played out in a sexy and classy way. The intimate scenes were just tasteful enough to leave the reader wanting more. Age gap books can be a hit or miss and this book was definitely a hit. Fagan plays out their relationship in the most beautiful way one can do given their character's backgrounds and circumstances.

I loved everything about this book and i can absolute guarantee that you will too!

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this eARC.

Thank you to Netgalley for my ARC of The Perfect Vintage!
I cannot imagine a more beautiful cover!! Definitely a book you can decorate with. I actually would love a print of it.
I really like the author, and totally have to admit I pictured her as the main character because I knew she wrote it. Probably not what she was going for.
Our main character was refreshing in that she is in her late 30s and childfree. I liked that a lot. I also enjoyed the descriptions of the scenery and decor throughout the book. I did feel like I had no idea how to pronounce a lot of the French words/places/phrases and that did disconnect me from the reading experience a few times.

Overall, this was good, but slow. I had a hard time connecting with the characters and wasn't really rooting for anyone along the way.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. While the storyline sounds incredibly interesting, I unfortunately was unable to finish it. I struggled with the writing style - specifically the storyline felt a bit scattered and the sentences were long winded and run ons.

Firstly I would like to thank Orsay Press and the author Chelsea Fagan for access to a perfect vintage.

The review I am going to make is an honest review regardless of the access I received for this book. It should be noted I was not paid for this review and ensure honesty in all my reviews.

Lea is a consultant for transforming French estates into hotels. She is single and child free. He cousins Stephanie gets divorced so she takes her to France for the summer. Lea falls for the son of her boss and risks her entire career.

I found it strange how formal she was even with family but this fit her type A character perfectly. The scenery descriptions were great and I enjoyed the flow of this book.

Lea, a 36 year old women from the states owns a consulting company where she turns French country estates to chic boutique hotels. She’s heading to the Loire Valley in France for the summer, for her newest clients, the Levesque family. This project is a bit different, because she brings along her best friend/cousin who is going through a very ugly divorce, and her college-aged daughter whom Lea considers a niece. Lea ends up falling for the much younger son of her boss, and her cousin/niece being there tend to complicate things.

As a 36 year old woman myself, who appreciates strong women as well as French scenery, I was so excited to pick this one up. I am a lover of romance and contemporary fiction, and this book seemed to straddle the two, although I wish there was even more focus on the romance. It was extremely descriptive and verbose around the hotel’s renovations, which allowed me as a reader to get a very good idea for Lea’s vision for the estate. However, it felt sort of like getting lost in the weeds of interior design, when I wanted to hear more about the range of characters, and get to know Lea better in hopes that I would understand her better.

My biggest issue was that I couldn’t relate to Lea whatsoever. She’s extremely tightly wound, type A, and she felt so formal, even in the ways she spoke to her cousin and niece. She came across as a bit pretentious, and while I appreciate that she is not a perfect human, she also came across as a bit cruel.

Overall, I did enjoy this book the ending made up for what a lot of the middle lacked. I appreciated the scenery as well, and think a lot of folks will really enjoy this one! The writing is beautiful.

SO grateful to Netgalley, the publisher and Chelsea for letting me an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review! I am a big fan of Chelsea and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

A great summer read! I didn’t know much about what to expect with this book going in — wasn’t even sure what genre it technically fell in — and I have to say I was so pleasantly surprised by it! This book toes the line of romance and women’s fiction perfectly. It’s fun, romance-filled, and sounds like the perfect way to spend a summer (hello, French Chateau), but it also examines women across the spectrum of three generations and different stages of life.

It was so refreshing to read about a single woman in her 30s with no plans for kids, no waiting around for the perfect man, and no qualms about being a confident, career-driven woman. However, it was also refreshing to see an honest look into the kind of that woman, Lea, and her insecurities, her failings, and, at times, her frustrating mood swings depending on what was going on in her or her friend’s life, the juxtaposition of Stephanie and Lea is one that I think a lot of female friendships experience — sometimes you can have really nothing in common on paper and can lead completely different types of lives, but being family is more than that. They’re both insecure about where they are in life and sometimes resent the other for it, but at the end of the day, the beauty of being on your own path but having someone support you regardless is present throughout this book.

I will say, I did also love the romance aspect of this, as well as the lessons it brought with it. At the end of the book, when David (the low key MVP here) points out the double standard of the age gaps between Stephanie and Alain and Lea and Theo, I was disappointed in myself for not even thinking about it until that very moment. This book keeps you on your toes like that — it feels like you develop with the characters. Their frustrations are yours, and though it’s easy to judge them for their questionable choices, we’ve all been there. This book balanced an interesting and fun plot with serious character development and a bit of romance, which is not an easy thing to do.

I’m so glad I got this arc and would recommend this book!

*thank you to Orsay Press and NetGalley for the ARC*

This novel debut by Chelsea Fagan exceeded any expectations I had. Knowing Fagan from the long ago days of Thought Catalog and presently through her astute cultural takes on Twitter, I wasn’t sure what a romance novel would look like in her words. But it’s a lovely blend of realistic romance, the nuance and importance of deep long-lasting friendships, and navigating a world in which women over thirty are expected to live by a different set of rules. I at first assumed the story was going to be an enemy to lovers tale, with Lea and Gabriel making it in the end with some kind of redemption arc for them both. Instead we get a different kind of story, a more real one, and for that I am grateful. I audibly laughed throughout and sobbed my way through the final two chapters. Not only do we resolve the conflict between the two female friends first, we then get the high note finale of a promise of more romance for our two unexpected but exciting lovers. Please write more novels, Chelsea! I’ll be first in line to read it.

I really enjoyed this book! This was nice easy breezy summer read. My favorite part was probably the author’s description of the French countryside throughout the novel. I love a forbidden romance, and was rooting for Theo the whole time. I felt like I was in France with Lea and her friends drinking champagne and indulging in all the delish foods.

Thanks NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Chelsea Fagan has written the perfect summer beach read. Sexy, sophisticated, and wonderfully indulgent. A Perfect Vintage will have you packing your bags and heading to the French countryside to sip champagne by the pool before you've finished the final page!

Lea Mortimer is an absolute type-A perfectionist. She has a list for everything and everything has a list. So when her beloved cousin, along with her cousin's college-aged daughter, unexpectedly join her on a work trip to transform an idyllic chateau in the Loire Valley in France, you just know things are going to take a dramatic turn. Affairs blossom, tensions run high, relationships are challenged, and betrayal might be on the horizon.

A Perfect Vintage is dramatic, provocative, complex, and hard to put down. The imagery is lovely and the details, small and large, were a delight. Fagan expertly touches on topics such as female pleasure, classism, sexism, and ageism. Each character is perfectly imperfect and that made me love them all even more. I'm a sucker for stories about female friendship, far away places, and romance that isn't too cheesy. I will definitely be recommending this one to any friends who are looking for that perfect summer book and I look forward to reading anything this author writes in the future.

A big thank you to Netgalley and Orsay Press for the Arc in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 - I wanted to like this because I’m a fan of Chelsea Fagan. The beginning was nice, but the story started to drag early on. This book was at least 100 pages too long and I didn’t like any of the characters. Lea clearly felt a lot of contempt for her best friend throughout the book and I’m unsure why they were friends beyond history. The Stephanie/Alain storyline felt like too much to me. Unless I missed it because I skim read the end to get through it, the reason Lea and her ex didn’t stay together didn’t come up with Theo and it seems kind of important.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this: I've never been so excited to get a galley!
As a preface: I love Chelsea Fagan. So I knew I would read this immediately.
I did not know I would love it as much as I did.

This story is just excellent from start to finish. As a typical "Type A" very career driven person, I connected to Lea from the first page. She's smart and critical and meticulous. She's the kind of 'heroine' I WANT to read about, which just made this an even better page-turner. Add in the lush french backdrop, food, music, wine, atmosphere, culture: it just really works. I thought the romance was perfect and the B-stories regarding friendship, divorce, and career vs self I could really connect with.

I cannot wait to get a copy when this launches! (PLUS the cover is beautiful.)

This was such a great read. It was a little outside of my regular genre, but I like to switch it up now and again and this was the perfect title to do so. The writing was so beautiful, I was able to jump into the story and really feel like I was in France over the summer. I enjoyed that the main character was older and I feel like that really added to the plot and the outcomes. A really great story that is a must read this summer!

This book was the exact escape I needed right now, I couldn’t put it down. Similar to Kennedy Ryan’s Before I Let Go, it is a romance that doesn’t shy away from the complexities of real life. The chateau setting is perfect - what I wouldn’t give for a cold glass of rosé by the pool! Full of complex characters who make decisions that drove me crazy (I’m looking at you, Stephanie!!), I still enjoyed spending time in their lives and rooted for them all to find their happy endings.

I really wanted to like this one, but it just didn’t really do it for me! I wonder if it may have worked better told in first-person?

The chemistry between couples wasn’t really palpable (Lea and Theo or Stephanie and Alain) and while the book felt slow, it also felt like everything happened so suddenly. I was expecting an enemies to lovers situation with Gabriel and Lea, so didn’t really appreciate the Lea/Theo build up as it was happening. It was intense so quickly.

I felt Maya’s character could’ve been interesting but was ultimately m unnecessary and often made redundant by Chloe. I hated the set up with her/Theo/Lea, but at the same time the stakes were never quite high enough. And then she disappeared almost entirely for the second and third quarters of the book!

The setting, descriptions, and overall vibes, however, were immaculate. It was a fun read and I could certainly see how others would love it. And Chelsea is a talented writer! All my criticisms would be with the story, not the author’s skill or execution. I’d definitely read another book from Chelsea (try first-person next time!)

100000/5⭐️

This was perfect. From the gorgeous french setting to the romance to the family drama, this debut had me hooked from the beginning. I sincerely hope this will not be Chelsea Fagan’s last book because her writing and captivating storytelling works wonders for me. I loved everything about this book and feel like it would make a juicy summer romance movie one day.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing me with an early copy in exchange for an honest review!

A Perfect Vintage hit all the right notes for a perfect adult beach read. The author's writing style is fresh and accessible while still feeling sophisticated. The main storyline may have been predictable, but the characters were all so dynamic, and unique, and *human* that I was engrossed until the very end - exactly what you want to read on vacation.

I want to note Lea's internal dialogue as particularly compelling and realistic, Her thoughts on being unpartnered in a world built for monogamy were especially striking. These moments of introspection were shining examples of the author's talent as a writer and authority on issues of today.

A few storylines were dropped rather abruptly that I think would have added more understanding of the characters, such as Lea retrieving items on Stephanie's behalf from Marcus or Lea having a movie night with Chlöe.

I need some wine and a trip to France asap after reading this book. I loved reading about the chateau and picturing every detail described.

I’m not typically a fan of huge age gaps in a book but I liked the slow burn romance they had. You definitely were rooting for Lea and Theo by the end.
However, I’m not a fan of joking about taking someone’s virginity without them knowing. That part just seemed weird and distasteful after the first time they had sex. Probably could have left that part out. But I did appreciate how PG13 it was because I’m not a huge fan of 🌶️🌶️

Overall a very fun read and would be a perfect vacation read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Orsay press for the ARC in return for an honest review.

The setting of this story stole the show, I loved all the details about the chateau and the food and wine. Lea was a great main character and I appreciated how honest she was about her life and feelings.