Orlando author toasts WWII heroism with ‘Winemaker’s Wife’
Orlando author Kristin Harmel shares her delight at reaching No. 1 for the first time anywhere. Her latest novel, “The Winemaker’s Wife,” was released in Canada several weeks ago and debuted at No. 1 on the country’s two major bestseller lists for hardcover fiction.
“It’s the first place it’s come out. May major success follow,” said Harmel, 40.
She’ll celebrate the book’s U.S. release Tuesday, Aug. 13, with a party at Quantum Leap Winery in Orlando. “It’s a book about wine. Where better to launch it than at a winery?” Harmel said.
“The Winemaker’s Wife” is another World War II story for Harmel, who describes herself as addicted to the era. “I just keep delving deeper,” she said.
War secrets were crucial in “The Sweetness of Forgetting,” her 2012 novel about a Massachusetts bakery, and “When We Meet Again,” her 2016 novel partially set in Florida.
Last year’s “The Room on Rue Amélie” focused on Ruby, a heroic American living in Paris during the war. The action shifts to the wine-growing region of Champagne for “The Winemaker’s Wife.”
“It was quite a hotbed of Resistance activity,” Harmel said. “The region had been decimated in World War I. They were getting back on their feet when World War II hit. I think it’s interesting in that it was a less strategic region for Germans.”
Praise from author Pam Jenoff (“The Lost Girls of Paris”) decorates the book jacket. “Love and betrayal, forgiveness and redemption … fantastic!” Jenoff writes. “The Winemaker’s Wife” jumps back and forth between the 1940s and 2019, when a French grandmother has a tragic story to tell. The book is partially about ordinary people working for the French Resistance.
“One of the messages in the book is you don’t have to have a loud voice to stand up,” Harmel said. “You just have to stand up — something a lot of ordinary people in France learned and found in themselves during the war. They found a small way to stand up against something they found was wrong. That’s a message that has some relation to where we are today. Sometimes we forget we always the have ability to speak up against what we don’t believe in.”
Harmel, a journalist who worked for People magazine, drew on books to research the new novel. She cited two by Don and Petie Kladstrup: “Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times” and “Wine and War: The French, the Nazis and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure.” Harmel also traveled to the region, talked to winemakers and met with a historian.
In her author’s note, Harmel says her fictional characters reflect the reality that Champagne residents endured. She has a message for readers: “I hope that the next time you open a bottle of champagne — whether it’s to celebrate a milestone or simply to enjoy on a weeknight — you’ll think of the light and darkness, the tragedy and triumph, that are part of every glass.”
Jumping through time helps Harmel explore a favorite theme. “As a writer, I’ve always been fascinated by how things in our past, even before we were born, are responsible for shaping who we are,” she said. “The things that happened to our grandparents affected the way they raised our parents. That’s something I find interesting to address in fiction: how decisions we make reverberate through the generations.”
Her last book, “The Room on Rue Amélie,” sold well, and now publisher Gallery Books (part of Simon & Schuster) has her on a one-book-a-year schedule.
Last year, she picked “The Room on Rue Amélie” as her favorite among her books. Now, she chooses “The Winemaker’s Wife.”
“Most of the time, each new book has been a step forward for me as a writer,” she said. “This is a book in which I grew as a writer. In this one, the characters are a little more well-rounded. With this one, it required me to go a lot deeper in the research.”
The plan is for her next book to be out in summer 2020. She is about halfway through writing it, and yes, it’s another World War II story. “I can’t stop,” she says.