Hello, Sunshine

After focusing on wine in her previous novel, Eight Hundred Grapes, Dave’s new novel centers on food, following a disgraced YouTube chef forced to confront her (in)authentic self. On her 35th birthday, Sunshine Mackenzie wakes up on top of the world: she has a successful online cooking show and several cookbooks to her name, not to mention a lucrative Food Network contract. But when a hacker reveals on Twitter that Sunshine’s entire public persona—from her culinary chops to her picture-perfect marriage to her down-home upbringing—is a fraud, she quickly discovers just how fragile and fleeting success can be. Fleeing scandal by retreating to Montauk and her estranged sister’s strained good graces, Sunshine desperately casts about for a new beginning; soon enough, however, she realizes that starting over isn’t easy when you no longer have any idea who you really are. In Sunshine, Dave reveals her skill at crafting deeply flawed yet sympathetic characters and avoids easy resolutions in favor of realizations hard won by the heroine. The settings—both the glamorous Manhattan and Hamptons environs and the restaurant-kitchen intrigues—are engaging, but ultimately Sunshine’s journey to define herself apart from her Instagram filters and YouTube followers is where the novel shines. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME Entertainment. (July)