These Tangled Vines

 

The other night, I decided to drop Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It was the March book for my New Jersey book club. I hadn't realized that the book was so long until I got the book from the library's waitlist a few days before the book club meeting. I got about one-third of the way through the book before the meeting, and I've been going back to it between the fiction books that I've been reading. Without the motivation to talk about the book, I've kind of lost my desire to finish it. It's interesting enough, and I love Goodwin's writing style. But our times right now are turbulent enough and I need a book that will distract me.

When I finished Kindred the other night, I had nothing on deck from the library to read. I went to my kindle app and checked my Amazon Prime first reads that I haven't yet read. These Tangled Vines by Julianne Maclean was my May selection. The reviews on Goodreads were great. I'm still mourning over my canceled Italy trip from last fall which is why I'd selected this particular title in the first place.

Here's the blurb from Goodreads:

If Fiona has learned anything in life, it’s how to keep a secret—even from the father who raised her. She is the only person who knows about her late mother’s affair in Tuscany thirty years earlier, and she intends to keep it that way…until a lawyer calls with shocking news: her biological father has died and left her an incredible inheritance—along with two half siblings.

Fiona travels to Italy, where the family is shocked to learn of her existence and desperate to contest her share of the will. While the mystery of her mother’s affair is slowly unraveled, Fiona must navigate through tricky family relationships and tense sibling rivalries. Fiona both fears and embraces her new destiny as she searches for the truth about the fateful summer her mother spent in Italy and the father she never knew.

Spilling over with the sumptuous flavors and romance of Tuscany, These Tangled Vines takes readers on a breathtaking journey of love, secrets, sacrifice, courage—and most importantly, the true meaning of family.

These Tangled Wines isn't full-blown women's fiction nor is it a full-blown romance. I'd say it's more about life choices that one has to make as a result of romance. I loved so many of the pieces of the novel but was disappointed when in my mind, they didn't add up to enough. Being my nitpicky self, there were three details that no one critiquing noticed but that bugged me. Tallahassee is not near a Gulf beach. (Why was from Fiona from Tallahassee anyway?) There was a lot of coffee drinking in this novel. But percolator? If an Italian offers you "coffee" and you say yes, you will get an espresso. And in the 1980s, writers weren't parking themselves at coffee shops in Italy to spend all day writing. In fact, in 2015, the last time I was in Italy, I can only think of two "coffee shops" that I stopped into where sitting and writing even for a short while would be a possibility.

What I loved the most was when the "family" that worked at the winery in the summer of 1986 gathered together outside to have dinner. The food, the wine, the camaraderie... and I could feel the atmosphere. I wanted to be there.

I can't recommend this  novel nor would I not recommend it. For me, it was a nice break from what I've been reading. 

When can I go to Italy again???