Did not have a chance to read and review prior to author’s statement that the book release will be paused for re-writes.

A NEW FAVORITE!
This romance is a captivating blend of tension, passion, and family rivalries, making for an unputdownable enemies-to-lovers story. Set against the lush backdrop of a sprawling, overgrown winery, the stakes are as high as the emotions when Sadie Sparrow is forced into a marriage of convenience with her family’s sworn enemy, Monroe Beaumont. What starts as a reluctant alliance quickly turns into a battle of wills, as Sadie fights to protect everything she holds dear—while resisting the undeniable pull of her new husband.

Sadie is a fiery, determined heroine, willing to do whatever it takes to keep her family’s legacy intact. Monroe, on the other hand, is equal parts infuriating and irresistible—exuding dominance and charm in equal measure. Their chemistry sizzles from the start, with sharp banter, forced proximity, and an underlying tension that makes every encounter electric.

Beyond the romance, the novel shines in its exploration of deep-seated family rivalries, the weight of inheritance, and the complexities of duty versus desire. The rich setting, complete with a vineyard full of secrets, adds an atmospheric charm that enhances the emotional depth of the story.

For fans of slow-burn tension, high-stakes love stories, and sizzling chemistry, this novel delivers on every front. The special edition’s gorgeous detailing only makes it more irresistible—a perfect addition to any romance lover’s shelf.

“Sparrow and Vine” is poorly written and poorly edited. In my book, this a total breakdown and I would give it zero stars if I could. Obviously Sophie is the most at fault but there is plenty of blame to be had for management and editing.

There has been a lot of focus the laborer comment from the MMC so I don’t need to go into why that is obviously harmful. Racism, including casual racism should be beneath every writer, editor, and publisher. For me, it wasn’t just what the MMC said, it was the FMC’s response. The FMC responded with "sometimes there is." No reprimand of the MMC. No nothing. I was shocked. The casualness is irresponsible and choosing not to change it made a loud statement. Racism is not a character flaw for people to root for, especially not in 2025 (or summer 2024 when Sophie says she wrote this), particularly when it isn’t even addressed and just accepted as normal. No thank you. This entire interaction was unnecessary for the characters and the plot. This decision made for wildly unlikeable characters and an offensive book. Poor editing and poor author management. Let’s get to the Musk thing. Frankly, it was a lazy tool to establish the side character in question and their aptitude for business acumen and efficiency, particularly when history has a literal record that Musk is not what he claims to be. It could have been done many different ways or changed later, especially since the comment wasn't necessary for the plot. Just swap it out with the character saying, “a Harvard business school professor visited the vineyard and we got to chatting. From running this place, I don’t have time to take more classes but I can listen to audiobooks and he gave me a ton of recs. It’s been so helpful.” We’ve now learned that the character is bright, motivated, and resourceful. Wonderful. But this book didn’t do that. Anyone who throws a Nazi salute should be radioactive and to leave his name in this book for no reason is lazy at best and antisemitic and hateful at worst. It leaves readers wondering a lot about what kind of writer and business they are supporting.

Also, yes, Bloom advised not to use these lines. But they still attempted to publish it. Bloom, if you’re reading this, please look inward and do some soul searching on this. Authors of color and/or authors from other underrepresented groups often have to be flawless at all times. They have to be twice as good to get half as far other authors. It's smells of privilege that Bloom saw the error, advised against it, but accepted the decision and went forward with publication anyway. I hope Bloom reviews its internal editing and review process, identifies the decisions that led to this, maybe work on some bias training for example (we are all human and have things to unlearn), and implement improved processes so this does not happen again. Bloom, you have so many incredible authors on your roster, I believe you can do better and I am rooting for you to accomplish that task.

Signed,
A Latina reader, Esq.

Spoiler Free Summary:
This is a Juliet and Romeo type romance. Essentially two families feuding over a vineyard and big house. A child from each feuding family marries and starts to fall for each other. Due to their parents ill intent and breakup the children has miserable childhoods. Together they have to work together to heal and save the vineyard.

Due to the current ongoing controversy, I do not feel comfortable reviewing the rest of the book.

I am choosing to opt out of reading THIS VERSION of this book due to the recent statements made by Sophie Lark and Bloom Books. It has since been pulled from Netgalley and all pre-orders have been canceled. I would still like to read this book, but only once the appropriate changes are made.

(wish you could just choose to "not rate" a book but since that's not an option...it has to be a 1 star by default)

Since the author+publisher have officially pulled/postponed this book due to the concerns over the writing I'm opting not to read this one to avoid repeating the same concerns.

I didn't enjoy this book, could be some of the verbiage that was used. Could just be that it's not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I probably would have DNF'd this anyway, or at the very least struggled through, but the casual racism in 2025 was the icing on the cake, and I struggled to make it past that.

I will say this book and premise had a lot of potential, the plot sounded like we were in for a fun ride, but the writing unfortunately just didn't do it for me personally. I found it quite flat, and the characters difficult to enjoy. Based on the synopsis, I think readers would expect more of an enemies-to-lovers trope in play, although it reads more as an 'old friends to lovers' relationship. More backstory and build-up could have been brought in throughout the initial chapters; we're vaguely told how these families don't like each other, and then all of a sudden the two leads are away to get married off page.

I'm glad to see the author confirm this book is now pulled for revisions, although I'm a little surprised that the choice was made not to remove these before advanced copies went out, however, I don't think I'd be inclined to re-attempt read this again. But I will keep a look out for future reviews, as I said, I think the concept of the plot was brilliant, but much much more could have been done.

The above opinions have been expressed by numerous other reviewers, so apologies but I will not be adding this to any reviewing platforms.

While this book was an anticipated read for me in 2025, and I was excited to have received the arc. I was shocked to see the blatant racism and Elon Musk references in this novel which has led to a DNF.
After reading Sophie Larks Grimstone ARC she was an author I was interested in reading other works, however after seeing that this author not only neglected to change the lines first time when flagged by Bloom and preceded to publish those lines has dropped my rating to 1 star. I appreciate the author and blooms transparency with this issue, but unfortunately, I likely won’t be reading this author’s works in the future.

As always, thank you to NetGalley and Bloom for this ARC <3

I received an ARC of Sparrow and Vine but will not be reviewing it, as it is being pulled for revisions due to concerns about problematic content. I appreciate the transparency in addressing these issues but will not be revisiting the book.

I was excited to receive this ARC, having read and enjoyed Sophie Lark in the past. Having now learned about the overtly racist statements in this book, as well as the glorification of El*n, I will not be reading or reviewing "Sparrow and Vine." For the author to say that the racist tones were flagged and she elected not to remove them....that is a hard pass from me. I understand the book is now being pulled and (hopefully) reworked. I still don't think I would want to read it, as all things Sophie Lark are not going to be my jam.

1 star because I have to give something.

Due to being made aware of the racist lines in this book, I will not be reading it. I was genuinely so excited to read this because I have loved Sophie Lark books in the past. After the statement from the author saying that this line was brought to their attention and they still went forward with it , I felt even worse about having this arc. Plus saying it was written in 2024 like that should make it better is a weird choice. Now that the book was pulled I don’t feel obligated to read it anymore.

Racism and references to Elon ruined this for me. I’ve loved Sophie’s previous books so this was a big disappointment for me. I’m glad she’s taken reader feedback, but still disappointed she wrote it in the first place.

DNF at 20%
I simply cannot emphasize how problematic it is for an author to write their MMC to say
"but shouldn't there be a crew of people with questionable work visas picking these grapes for us?"
to the FMC in which she just thinks is an okay thing to say and doesn't call out.
I cannot believe that we are still allowing racist rhetoric into readers spaces.
Sophie Lark do better. Bloom books, thanks for the ARC I guess but maybe also drop this author from your roster.
Also in chapter 15 one of the supporting characters says "I was inspired by Elon Musk. I use his five-step design process." Absolutely not.

(I read this unaware of the racist undertones as i had completely missed the lines until it was brought to my attention)

The minute enemies-to-lovers and marriage of convenience was put into the same sentence, I knew I needed to read this immediately.

Per usual, Sophie Lark delivers a romance that’ll make you laugh, swoon, and possibly question your own life choices (like why your family isn’t running a vineyard with hot, cinnamon-scented rivals that puts you into a marriage of convenience?).

In short we have Sadie Sparrow, our fmc- who is willing to put herself on the spot and marry her “worst” enemy—Monroe Beaumont—in order to secure the family inheritance.

The tension between Sadie and Monroe is so dhjsjdjsjsjsjjsjd🤭😋😍 that I had to fan myself while reading (literally). Trust me when I say that these two will have you wishing your enemies were as easy to fall for as a rival turned husband with an inconvenient amount of charm.

This book has it all:
- marriage-of-convenience
-, high-stakes family drama
-enemies to lovers
-twists and turns

A must read, and an absolute immediate fave of mine by Sophie lark.

Thank you NetGalley for the Arc of this book.
I loved it. I was a bit surprised about how much i actually enjoyed this book but Monroe and Sadie are just such an amazing couple and i loved their whole relationship. I love Sparrow and Wine. But my absolut favourit was June. I can not wait to read more about her.

I would like to revise this Review since i Was now told about how racist some sentences actually were. Racism is not acceptable

At first, I was really excited to get this ARC because I’ve enjoyed some of this author’s previous work. But that excitement? Yeah, it was short-lived.

I found out about the issues (blatant racism!) on Instagram and saw Sophie’s statement (which I’ll get to later). At that point, I dreaded reading it, but I wanted to form my own opinion and give an honest review. Spoiler alert: I DNF-ed as soon as I saw the line from our MMC—

"Shouldn’t there be a crew of people with questionable work visas picking these grapes for us?”

EXCUSE ME?! What?!? How is this acceptable? How am I supposed to root for this character after that? And then I saw from other reviews that later, one of the sisters glorifies Elon Musk… 🤢 Yeah, absolutely not.

Sophie released a statement saying Bloom (the publisher) recommended removing the lines, but she chose to keep them. And her excuse? That she wrote this in 2024 when “everything was different.” Girl, no. This was never okay. It’s not okay now. It’s not okay EVER.

I can’t even express my disappointment enough. Never picking up this author again.

Sparrow and Vine was an easy and funny read, I liked the scenery and thought it was quite original and the marriage of convenience between the main characters was the cherry on top, although I found their chemistry lacking at times.
I grew somewhat fond of the Sparrow girls and the Beaumont boys and am curious about their stories but I’m not sure I will continue the series once their books come out.

Ngl I got pulled violently out of the story twice: once when June, the middle Sparrow sister, talks about her wine production process being inspired by El*n (should come with a content warning or something considering the state of this country and the rage I feel whenever I see that name), and the other time when Monroe says: “I don’t want to sound ignorant, but shouldn’t there be a crew of people with questionable work visas picking these grapes for us?” Um I’m not sure what Lark was going for here/the intent behind this because, again, considering the state of current events in the US and what’s in the news, I found this super questionable.

I did, in fact, finish this book though and tried to ignore those things because I liked the premise of the story and the setup, and I liked Sadie with all her insecurities and people pleasing tendencies. I even mostly liked Monroe (beyond that one quote that made me stop for a few minutes…) because of how much he liked Sadie without even being aware of it at first. They were cute together, and the dedication made me push through because I wanted to see them find their own home in each other.

However, I also feel like this fell a little flat for me; we’re told a lot of things rather than being shown them in the sense that we learn about Sadie and Monroe mainly by them telling each other things that happened in the past and things they felt. I feel like the character depth suffered in that regard; it also felt a bit insta-lovey because of that. Honestly some of the writing felt a little bit like it was trying too hard to be sweeping and romantic to the point of getting repetitive. I’m a hopeless romantic but even I was getting a bit tired in the latter chapters of them going on about the same points lol. I think I was missing a bit of that connection, the spark, or I wouldn’t have minded it that much. I also hated the other Beaumont brothers (Grayson especially lol what an ass) and didn’t learn enough about Sadie’s sisters to like them much either… I know there are going to be more books about them, but… I don’t care much because I don’t like them much.

I did like that the third act conflict (at least what I’m assuming it was supposed to be) was resolved in a way that showed Sadie’s character growth and her trust, since I did wonder if she was going to buy it. And it was really sweet, despite my issues with the rest of the book. And Monroe’s belief in Sadie and her belief in him was pretty adorable. I did like seeing them learn to open up to each other and get bolstered by the other’s support.

Not sure how to feel about this one still… those two things that pulled me out of the story really yanked me out and it never quite recovered.

Thank you to Netgalley/Bloom Books for the ARC.

I was shocked by the racist and hurtful comments in this book. I’m also shocked they weren’t removed originally before eARCs were sent out.

I was really interested in reading Sophie’s book. It was so disappointing to see these comments in the book.

Thank you sourcebooks bloom books and NetGalley for the eARC.

Rating: 🦆