
In Kristin Harmel's dual-timeline masterpiece, courage ferments alongside champagne in Nazi-occupied France. Praised by Pam Jenoff as "fantastic," this 4.14 Goodreads-rated gem reveals resistance secrets that will forever change how you experience champagne. Would you risk everything for freedom?
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In the sun-dappled vineyards of France's Champagne region, where the chalky soil nurtures some of the world's most celebrated wines, a different kind of fermentation was brewing in 1940. As German forces advanced toward the prestigious Maison Chauveau estate, young Ines Chauveau pedaled home frantically, her bicycle wheels spinning beneath her like the hands of a clock racing toward catastrophe. When she delivered the news of invasion to her husband Michel, his response was telling: "I suppose it is time we finish hiding the champagne." This practical concern revealed the peculiar reality of winemaking families whose fortunes-quite literally-lay in their cellars, vulnerable to German confiscation. What neither could anticipate was how these same cellars, designed for aging wine, would soon become hiding places for far more dangerous secrets-weapons for the Resistance, Jewish refugees fleeing persecution, and the tangled web of betrayals that would forever alter their lives.
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