My rating:  4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of the Rosetta family: Caterina, her mother Ava, and her new daughter Marisa. This book reminded me a lot of Kristen Harnisch’s The Vintner’s Daughter, which I LOVED. For anyone who likes this book you should also read hers, or vice versa.  The family owns a winery in Napa, California and has well respected wines that rival those in Europe. The book mostly takes place in 1956, though there are some flashbacks to 1928 and 1929 when Ava came to America. One of the things that particularly struck me about this book was the emphasis on lack of women’s rights during both of those time periods. Caterina has a baby out of wedlock and many times is told directly to her face that she’s a whore and should be ashamed of herself. Which I think is both sad that someone would speak to her that way and also just odd considering how far we’ve come away from that in today’s day and age. I would have to say it is definitely not uncommon to know several people who were either unwed when they had a child or are still unwed with a child. Society has been almost forced to accept this as a norm, so it was just interesting to see how unaccepted it was in a different time period.
Anyways, there were multiple things going on in this book. There was the budding but tragic romance between Caterina and Marisa’s father. There was the family drama that caused Ava to come to America all those years ago, which resurfaces when Caterina’s grandmother dies and leaves her a house in Italy in her will. There was the drama between Ava and Caterina over Marisa. And finally there was the struggle to save the winery (and their home) after disaster strikes. All in all there were multiple plot points all intertwined, which made for a very exciting read. I honestly couldn’t put this one down, I technically started it Sunday night late (around 10:30pm) and then couldn’t stop reading it on Monday and ended up finishing it at 12:30 am Monday morning.
Overall I really enjoyed this book a lot. The conversations were slightly stilted at times and somewhat awkward at others but it didn’t effect my enjoyment of the book. Also I thought the ending came up a bit quick and honestly I thought it was a little odd. I’m glad it had a (**spoiler**) happy ending but it just took me back a little bit that the challenge the couple had to overcome at the end was so.. different from other books I’ve read. Things I enjoyed about the book though included the description of the scenery in Italy, which was excellent, and the narratives about the wine-making process were informative and interesting. Great book and a great read, I think this one is going to be a popular one for 2016 summer.

The bottom line: Really really liked this book! I couldn’t put it down, the story line was riveting. Conversations seemed a tad stilted to me but other than that it was just a great book! I would definitely recommend!

Link to author website

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