Eat, love, name drop: Julie Caplin’s cringey love letter to Prague—a guilty holiday read

Author Julie Caplin seems to have perfected a lucrative formula: a guidebook masquerading as a schlocky romance novel—complete with groan-worthy sex scenes (for all the wrong reasons) and so much product placement that readers might think her books are sponsored by tourism boards.

Caplin, whose previous books, alliteratively titled The Little Café in Copenhagen and The Little Paris Patisserie are part of the Romantic Escapes series, now turns her attention to the Czech capital with A Place in Prague (Harper Collins, 2024). Her latest offering has all the hallmarks (pun intended) of a Netflix holiday movie: improbable coincidences, a fish-out-of-water protagonist, a love triangle, and a life-altering competition culminating in Christmas cheer and, in this case, Czech beer.

The book unabashedly brims with mentions of restaurants, shops, and landmarks, making it a useful companion for anyone looking to eat and drink their way around the Czech capital alongside the characters. It also serves as an inadvertent guide for expats, detailing the dos and don’ts for foreigners—from ordering beer in Czech to struggling with IKEA furniture and what to do with diacritics (a.k.a. “the nonsense things above the letters”).

The plot centers on British protagonists Anna Love and Leo Knight, selected for a cultural exchange program to learn the craft of Czech beer. Thrown together in a shared Prague apartment—a slanted and enchanted maisonette with views of terracotta rooftops and domed cathedrals from the terrace—the setting is enviable, not to mention outlandish, given Prague’s current housing crisis.

But despite the romance-ready backdrop of picturesque sunsets, cobbled streets and “the soft glow of candlelit Charles Bridge,” there’s an awkward plot twist brewing alongside the pivo: Anna and Leo were once married, and her new boyfriend, rugby-loving Steve, has no clue.

What follows over 380 pages is often unintentionally comedic: sexually charged moments involving vývar (broth) spoon-feeding, stolen glances amid mushroom foraging, a deflated air mattress at a friend’s chata forcing the exes to share a bed, and an argument about whether to watch England play at Letná or have dinner at Prague Castle.

The book has been called a publicity campaign for Prague—a fitting description, as Caplin began her career in public relations before churning out her Romantic Escapes series, with Prague as its twelfth installment. References abound, from David Černý's spitfire butterflies at Máj, to luck-bringing statues on Charles Bridge, beer consumption statistics, Petřín Tower, Strahov Monastery, Hard Rock Cafe, and Holešovice’s Vnitroblock.

However, these tidbits often feel like they belong to a tour guide’s schpiel rather than the kind, helpful Czech friends and neighbors written into the story as human Wikipedias explaining dumplings, cottages, communism, and taking the newcomers to drinking spots no self-respecting Czech would frequent.

At times, the product placement is too much. Moravian wine brands are name-checked throughout. The characters visit and mention multiple restaurants, including Eska, Kuchyň, and Lokál, where they order “mlíko” pours to flaunt their knowledge of Czech beer culture. The duo's food tour through Prague even stops at Naše Maso butcher shop and Sisters deli for chlebíčky.

Some details are maddeningly vague. For example, a stunning café described in one scene remains unnamed, leaving readers guessing its location. Even more frustrating is Anna’s decision to abandon her centrally located, beautifully appointed flat in Košíře—because the temptation of Leo's “Greek God” bod is unbearable—to move into a dreary panelák in Prague 14. Thankfully, she comes to her senses and they make it work.

One aspect the book (kind of) gets right is its brewing focus. Anna dreams of starting her own beer line, while Leo aspires to open a microbrewery. Readers are treated to detailed descriptions of the brewing process as the characters vie for the grand prize: lager tanks and equipment to launch their own small brewery. The familiar smell of wort fermenting acts a bizarre aphrodisiac throughout.

Interestingly, the Czech translation of the book is titled A Pub in Prague and features a completely different cover than the English edition: a pint of beer against the Prague Castle backdrop. In contrast, the UK edition’s cover depicts a couple embracing on a snowy Charles Bridge—perhaps each smartly tailored to its respective audience’s idealized vision of Prague?

Which raises the question: will this book do for beer what Eat, Pray, Love did for gelato, with hordes of tourists flocking to Czechia in search of romance among the hops? We can only hope its glowing endorsement of Prague as the world’s beer capital won’t bring more hen and stag parties (Steve, who Anna chides for seeking out an Irish pub in Prague, seems the type).

If you're searching for novels about expats in Prague as last-minute holiday gifts for book lovers in your life, you can probably do better than this: The Russian Debutante’s Handbook by Gary Shteyngart, Necessary Errors by Caleb Crain, Melmoth by Sarah Perry, or Goulash by Brian Kimberling, to name a few.

But if you’d prefer to park your intellect this Christmas and indulge in squeaky-clean sex scenes, cookie-cutter dialogue, and characters as flat as Hot Frosty’s abs, this is your high-calorie holiday treat.