Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else’s shoes? Jojo Moyes’ 2023 novel helps answer that question. Nisha Cantor, a wealthy globetrotter, and Sam Kemp, an overly stressed woman with an awful job, accidentally pick up each other’s gym bag. Inside Nisha’s bag was a beautiful pair of 6-inch Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, which makes Sam feel more confident when she wears them. Nisha is desperate to find them since her husband is divorcing her and wants the shoes back. Both women’s lives turn upside down with new life experiences. This was a funny, easy read with numerous twists and turns in the plot. And we learned all about famous and infamous wine fraud - Rudy Kurniawan to Yellowtail.

This intriguing 2022 novel by Nikki Erlick focuses on the age-old question of how much time one has to live. The tale begins when everyone in the world over 22 years of age receives a small wooden box with the message: The measure of your life lives within. Every person found a piece of string in the box correlating to how long they will live. We follow the lives of eight New Yorkers and the repercussions of the choices they make based on their string length. Following the theme of the wooden box, we try a boxed white wine from La Petite Frog Picpoul out of Southern France. It proved to be a crisp, tasty wine that we enjoy while learning about the aspects of boxed wine.

This hilarious novel by Richard Osman was made into a Netflix series with an all-star cast. Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce, and Ibrahim are 80-year olds living at Cooper’s Chase, a retirement village in Kent, who solve cold cases as a hobby. But now, they have a live investigation when Ian and Tony, who are involved in expanding the village, die under suspicious circumstances. As the mystery progresses, the murder victims’ past lives reveal shady activities, along with former associates Jason, Bobby, and Turkish. Extra skeletons in the cemetery and confessions by multiple residents add some clever twists to the plot. We enjoy a chilled Fino sherry from El Maestro Sierra that is bready and floral with a pale, lemon color.