[Seduction and social climbing, a morally unrestrained heroine, stealing someone else's lover, Western romance, a cast of villains, forbidden love]
Twenty-year-old Lena has only one goal: to stay on this land.
She knows better than anyone what it means to be poor. So she seizes every opportunity she can.
She's young and beautiful. She knows how to bat her eyelashes to soften a man's heart, and how to smile to set it racing.
She seduces deliberately, advancing one step at a time. Everything goes according to plan as she uses every means at her disposal to make each man a stepping stone.
Grapes must be picked before they are fully ripe to make the finest wine.
Love must begin before it ripens, to preserve its raw, burning, unreasonable nature.
Only when summer ends and the grapes are ripe does she realize:
Some fruit, once picked, can never return to the tree.
