Diana L. Graham’s upcoming novel, Brushes, Baguettes & Bristles, follows four longtime friends in their mid-sixties as they leave the Hamptons for a month on the French Riviera. Through cooking classes, painting, shared meals, and unexpected relationships, Emma, Sara, Natalie, and Lee confront grief, loneliness, complicated love, and changing priorities. Set against the beauty of the Côte d'Azur, the character-driven novel explores friendship, renewal, second chances, and the belief that it is never too late to begin a new chapter.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Novel Explores Friendship and Second Chances on the French Riviera
East Hampton, NY – Sep 21, 2026 - What happens when four women in their mid-sixties trade a summer of painting in the Hamptons for a month of cooking classes in the hills above Nice? Diana L. Graham answers this question in her upcoming novel, Brushes, Baguettes & Bristles, a tender story about renewal, risk, and the friendships that hold us together.
The book follows Emma, Sara, Natalie, and Lee, childhood friends now navigating the quieter challenges of later life. Emma, a widow and artist, searches for more than the perfect light for her canvases. Sara, a divorced psychologist, has withdrawn so deeply that her friends barely recognize her. Lee, a journalist who swore off commitment, discovers that a casual fling in Paris feels unexpectedly complicated. Natalie, a successful cookbook author and television personality, realizes that her marriage has become nothing more than a business partnership.
When Natalie invites the group to spend April at a boutique hotel and vineyard on the Côte d'Azur, each woman arrives carrying her own invisible weight. Over four weeks of morning cooking lessons, afternoon painting, and long dinners under twinkling garden lights, they begin to shift. The novel does not shout about transformation. Instead, it watches it unfold slowly, through shared meals, honest conversations, and the quiet courage to say yes to something new.
The core message of Brushes, Baguettes & Bristles is simple but powerful. It is never too late to rewrite your story. Love can arrive when you least expect it. Friendship, when tended across decades, becomes a lifeline. The novel speaks directly to women over fifty who crave stories that reflect their own complexities. It also welcomes any reader who believes that second acts deserve as much attention as first ones. Fans of gentle, character-driven women's fiction will feel at home here.
Graham writes with a restrained warmth that trusts readers to feel without being told. She avoids melodrama. Her sentences move like a morning stroll through a French village. She lets a bowl of soup or a hesitation at a doorway carry as much meaning as a declaration of love. This restraint makes the emotional moments land harder. Readers will find themselves slowing down, savoring each scene as if it were a meal they did not want to end.
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About Diana L. Graham
About Diana L. Graham
Diana Graham never expected to write romance. A former financial services professional, she traded spreadsheets for stories after years of living abroad and learning that life resists neat definitions. She gardens, cooks, and volunteers at LVIS, where she helps people with their interior choices when she is not at her desk. Diana believes in comforting stories of hope and a gentle nudge forward after hard times. She counts Virginia Woolf and Barbara Taylor Bradford among her inspirations. A hopeless romantic, she gets lost in books with adventure, change, and happy endings. Diana lives in East Hampton, New York, with her dog, Nanou. Her best belief: the best is yet to come.
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