Yerba Buena: A Novel

Written by Nina LaCour

Narrated by Julia Whelan

"Full of sensory details, vivid characters, and moment after moment of gorgeously rendered ordinary life, this audiobook is a queer must-listen." -AudioFile

This program is masterfully narrated by award-winning "Golden Voice" narrator Julia Whelan.

Yerba Buena is the debut adult novel by the bestselling and award-winning YA author Nina LaCour, following two women on a star-crossed journey toward each other.

A Most Anticipated Book (Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, Vulture, NBC News, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Electric Lit, BookRiot, Bustle, Goodreads, LGBTQ Reads, Autostraddle, Veranda Magazine, The Lesbian Review, and more)

“A love story for our time.”—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics

"This book is a precious thing."—Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop

When Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, she leaves behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena and embarks on an affair with the married owner.

The morning Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But the damage both women carry, and the choices they have made, pulls them apart again and again. When Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose, they must decide if their love is more powerful than their pasts.

At once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a love story for our time and a propulsive journey through the lives of two women trying to find somewhere, or someone, to call home.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781250837837

Nina LaCour

NINA LACOUR is the Michael L. Printz award-winning and nationally bestselling author of Watch Over Me, We Are Okay, Hold Still, and Everything Leads to You. She hosts the podcast Keeping a Notebook and teaches for Hamline University's MFA in writing for Children and Young Adults program. A former indie bookseller and high school English teacher, she lives with her family in San Francisco.

Reviews for Yerba Buena

[Emma Rivera · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Probably one of my favorite “visionary” books. I saw and felt everything.

[strilinga · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

this was beautiful and so entertaining in all of its difficulty to digest (the triggering subjects)

[Kayla Pratt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This, was intense

It was REALLY good. But definitely intense. Everyone was dealing with their own brand of fucked up. It's kind of sad, but made for a pretty good book.

4 stars

[Victoria Edelsbrunner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful book. Sad and hopeful and so very emotional.

[Jade Watts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sad, beautifully written- not a book to escape into when you’re feeling the realness of the world, but certainly a book to guide you in feeling your own heartbreak