Distilling Sunlight

Distilling Sunlight takes place in the second half of 1928, from August through the winter. Sam Farrell, a beer brewer, is troubled by two problems. One is the contamination of beer at various (other) breweries. The other is a project he's working on to create medicinal beers to support ongoing needs from the Great War.
 

Content notes

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This book deals with varying kinds of long-standing grief. The heroine's mother died in childbirth (having her) in a way that no one could stop at the time, and it has a longstanding impact on her, her father, and her extended family (including several of her life choices to the start of the book).

The hero's wife died of cancer about two years before the start of the book, leaving her husband and two sons. Neither is discussed in extensive medical detail (a sentence or three about the first, discussion of the progression over time limiting what Nell could do with her sons in the latter case), but the impact of both is present throughout the book. Late in the book, there's also discussion of the impact of the Great War and ongoing grief for those deaths. Otherwise, the book deals with class differences and is set at a brewery. It discusses medicinal beers, and people drink beer (and discuss beer) at a number of points in the book.

Notable people


 

Places

The Smythe-Clive home, a magical village in Staffordshire, Trellech, and London
Distilling Sunlight : A man and woman in 1920s clothing silhouetted, sharing bottles of beer. Hops and extracts are in the top right corner, on a golden background