Publication Date: Jan 2024
Synopsis:
Paris-born Vivienne Lebrun longs for a different life. One where she doesn’t attend college three thousand miles away from her family in New York City. A life where she is sophisticated and has kissed many men, both standing up and sitting down, like the lovers in Rodin’s sculpture. In that life, she would skip her final year of school and start writing books and working at a New York bakery. And her French mother wouldn’t (possibly, maybe) be dealing with the return of cancer.
In her real life, all Vivienne can do is obsessively catalog her longings in her journal. But as a new semester begins, she enrolls in a poetry class taught by Peter Breznik, a handsome Yugoslavian graduate instructor. In a heartbeat, she’s taken by his spell-casting blue eyes, his almost-smile, and his romantically-worn canvas satchel. Soon—though Vivienne suspects she’s stumbled into a dream—Peter is talking to her in chance library encounters about poems, future plans, and his violently unraveling country. And Vivienne is not just writing her fantasies, but wondering if she might (possibly, maybe) be singled out by the universe to live one.
Until struggles intensify for both their families—Vivienne’s mother’s health, Peter’s brother’s recklessness in war-torn Croatia—and they are pulled by demands beyond their control. Through distance and heartbreak, can Vivienne and Peter find one another and choose the life they had dreamed of together?
What To Expect:
Drinker of Ink is a closed-door historical romance set in the early 1990s featuring two young poets that navigate their love lives in times of uncertainty, told in poetic + diary style writing.
Content Warnings:
Language: Includes “ass”, “hell” and other similar curse words several times but does not saturate the novel
Sexual Content: Closed Door – Passionate kissing, thoughts of marital relations but nothing graphic or excessive
Violence: Mild – Bullying/teasing, war time violence described without graphic detail
Substance Use: None
Prejudices: Discussion of feminism & communism
Religious Themes: This book features Catholic characters. This includes prayer and church-going but it is not the main theme of the book.
Other Topics: Cancer, strained parental relationships
*SPOILERS*: Death of loved ones, threat of miscarriage
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