Robin Sloan's Favorite San Francisco Books > Likes and Comments
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Hello! I would love to submit my debut San Francisco foodie romcom to the list. Harmony's Bytes was created from a dream I had during an August 2025 family vacation in Toronto. Harmony develops a San Francisco online food/drink review business at harmonysbytes.com
(my website debuts at harmonysbytes.com on September 9th) . Soon restaurants, cafes, and bars are all clamoring for the vaunted "Approved by Harmony's Bytes" placard.
Scott Kasten sees the placard at his local cafe and clicks on the QR code. There he sees Harmony, the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes upon. They email witty food reviews back and forth, but eventually Harmony's best friends Nikki and Katie step in and vet Scott at a Marina Zao Noodle Bar dinner.
When Scott and Harmony finally meet at Maharani on Post Street, the attraction is palpable. But Harmony is hiding a secret that may jeopardize this new relationship, her brand, and her very survival.
Harmony's Bytes is a romantic romp through 2010 SF's restaurants, cafes, and bars. Imagine a literary "When Harry Met Sally" with the requisite humor and wordplay, but also featuring online food reviews, MANY restaurant dates, strong women negotiating relationships, secrets, and betrayal. There are physical and mental health challenges, and one LGBTQ+ relationship. Readers get intimate with the characters, because nearly every chapter is told from multiple characters' P.O.V.s.
San Francisco will devour Harmony's Bytes!
✪ Less by Andrew Sean Greer
✪ Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents by Ellen Ullman
✪ Tales of the Fish Patrol by Jack London
✪ A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins
✪ River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit
If you want his explanation, check out the link above.
P.S., San Francisco-related albeit unrelated to Robin Sloan: the 2017 Hugo nominee for best science fiction novel All the Birds in the Sky is set in San Francisco for the [better] second half. It's by San Francisco denizen Charlie Jane Anders (cf. her Writers with Drinks).