BookView Review

Borchert’s layered novel blends the intrigue of a domestic thriller with the emotional pull of a woman reckoning with her past. Claire Didier, a gifted but obsessively driven swimsuit designer, loses her career after a prototype for a life-saving swimsuit malfunctions in a spectacular—and nearly catastrophic—demo. Reeling from the humiliation, she uncovers a photograph hidden in her late husband David’s jacket: a boy in a French vineyard who bears David’s dimples and a handwritten note. The discovery sends Claire across the Atlantic in the days before Christmas, chasing both answers and redemption.

Borchert pairs Claire’s hunt for Luca with an equally compelling dive into her own heart, pacing the story like a thoughtful mystery where the past (her love story with David) presses in on every step forward. Instead of courting melodrama, the book opts for understated revelations: the specter of infidelity lingers, but the deeper tension comes from Claire’s struggle to face her own shortcomings and to show grace to the boy who may share David’s lineage, and his dangerous inheritance. Borchert renders the vineyard setting with luminous detail, while the emotional journey is equally striking, following grief’s slow burn toward acceptance and forgiveness. The prose is lyrical and the finale satisfying. Thoughtful and resonant, the book is both a tender holiday story and a moving exploration of how love endures beyond death. Fans of women’s fiction and literary domestic suspense will find it a rewarding, heart-steadying read.

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