Rating: 
Summary: My favorite storyteller pens another winner
Review: Olivia Jones accompanied by her nine-year old troubled daughter Tess agrees to write the memoirs of Natalie Seebring, owner of the Asquoniet Vineyard and Winery in Rhode Island. Natalie stuns her adult children, Susanne and Greg when she announces her intention to marry Carl Burke, the long-term manager of the winery although their beloved father has been dead only six months.Iit is a struggle for her to talk about her feelings, Natalie hires Olivia to help her tell the truth to her children in order to gain their blessing for her wedding. Olivia is unaware that she is entering a major family feud. However, she quickly comes to love her employer, who makes her and her daughter feel like part of an extended family. Carl's son Simon makes Olivia want to believe in fairy tales, but she fears that he will desert her like everyone else in her life has done. Olivia, the Seebrings, and the Burkes have many personal obstacles to overcome if they are to learn what true loving means. Because of the width of the talent, no one can predict what the next Barbara Delinsky book will be especially since the great author never repeats herself. Her novels are always different as writing style and the characters are unique to one tale only. THE VINEYARD is Barbara Delinsky at her best, delivering a first class family drama filled with a heartwarming and gut-wrenching story line. The passion and uncertainty of caring for another person and the vineyard, which seems at times like a person, feels true to life in what is certain to be the writer's latest bestseller. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: The Grapes Get the Starring Role
Review: After reading, and enjoying, several of Ms. Delinsky's novels - and having met her this summer - I was looking forward to reading her latest, The Vineyard. When I closed the book, I was left with a mixed bag of emotions and thoughts. While I really enjoyed the budding love story of Olivia and Simon, I found myself wishing there had been more devoted to them , especially how Olivia and her daughter, Tess, helped Simon in his grief recovery over losing his wife and daughter several years before. The italicized portions of the book, which constituted Olivia's writing of Natalie Seebring's memoirs, broke my concentration and drew me out of the story, although I don't know how the author could have crafted this differently and still gotten across Olivia's creative writing ability. Ms. Delinsky expertly weaves several story lines of a dysfunctional family into a verbal tapestry rich in characterization and human foibles. Of all the characters, I loved Simon best, but what I really loved was the in-depth description of life caring for and nurturing a vineyard. I grew up less than a mile from many vineyards, but never did I know what went on inside the little ecosystems. If nothing else, The Vineyard gave me a new appreciation for those whose livelihoods depend on grapes and what they must do to make the harvest a success.
Rating: 
Summary: Trite, trite, trite - HELP!
Review: I struggled through this book - my first Delinsky book. I read it because my book club wanted to read it. I almost didn't make it through the entire book and I wonder what the other book club members will have to say. For me, it was like sitting in front of the TV watching a bad daytime soap opera. I found it to be a waste of time and I was happy that the length of the book was the only real challenge for me. I thought Olivia's character - she sleeps with Simon after only a month of staring at one another from across the lawn - was weak and uninteresting, sappy and whiny. To top it off, she and Simon sleep in the same bed with the 10 year old daughter in the next room and this is considered a great romance!! Pullease. I can't think of a single thing other than perhaps the discussion of how the grape vines ripen that was interesting to me. Yuck. I'm on to The Da Vinci Code - THANK GOD!
DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME - READ A GOOD BOOK.
Rating:
Summary: Real and Gritty
Review: I really like Barbara Delinsky's style of writing. You feel as if you are an actual part of the story rather than "remote viewing" as is the case in nearly every other romance fiction writer. Nor is there any sordid, soft porn sex scenes to tittilate voyeuristic lust. She builds her love scenes as a gradual, gentle and deeply insightful awakening. She reveals romance in an elegant, classy and very tasteful manner that engages the reader in the reality of the eventual mating without grossing out the reader with the vulgarity found in Stephanie Laurens or even Nora Roberts show-all-tell-all graphic manner that forces some readers to skip those "steamy" pages. Delinsky's books are like opening a box of treasures and never being disappointed or repelled by the contents. Delinsky also has a wonderful sense of philosophy about family relationships and the manner in which to build strong ones despite setbacks and condemnation by said family or friends. In this book she examines the greatly flawed assumptions that middle aged children dump on their elderly 76 year old mother when she elects to marry her vineyard manager and childhood lover after the death of her husband and father of the kids.
Also this fascinating story is about the labor intensive work of farming a vineyard and the whole issue of sacrifices made by a very strong woman for her entire life to ensure a long term goal of security which makes this story very empowering to women. I did not care for the manipulative, self pitying, pathological liar Olivia, a photo restorer, who happens through connection to her retiring boss to find a position in the vinyardist's own household for the summer to help organize memoirs, restore old photos and write the book that will explain to Natalie's adult children why she is marrying Carl and the truth about their biological father. Olivia's learning disabled and dysfunctional child dropped into the mix is just plain annoying, but the author deals with this difficult topic in an informed and proactive way. Then, there is Simon, the sour, recalcitrant, rejecting vineyard co-manager whose lost his mother, wife and child in a freak sailing accident caused by drunken sailors in another watercraft. After 4 years he is still wallowing in anger and self pity. Both Simon and the child Tess make the book grating at times, especially the kid's rebellion against authority and her special education teachers. Then there is Olivia's whining about her long lost alcoholic mother whose rejection has forced her to live in fantasyland her entire life. She even fantasizes that she is a long lost member of Natalie's household. This is all a bit much. However, I do recommend this book for the elegant prose and style that the author brings. She makes me think of Guy Gavriel Kay's exquisite writing style as she unfolds a story in a rich tapestry of life in a microcosm. I will definitely read more of her stories.
Rating:
Summary: Another Wonderful Barbara Delinsky Novel
Review: Once again I am recommending a Barbara Delinsky book -- It's nearly 3 AM in the morning and I've had tears streaming down my face. I could NOT put this book down. When I first started the book I was a bit disappointed. There was such a huge cast of characters I was becoming confused and the details of grapes and winemaking seemed to bog the story down. But since I've had good luck in the past with Barbara Delinsky books, I kept with it. Boy, am I glad I did! Seventy-six-year-old Natalie Seebring is a recent widow - six months to be exact. Naturally, when they receive invitations to her wedding, her children are rather taken aback - not only is she marrying so soon after their father's death, but she is marrying Carl Burke, the manager of their vineyard of all people! Olivia Jones's job as a photo restorer is just about finished as her boss is retiring. When she receives word that Natalie Seebring, whose photos she's been restoring, is looking for an assistant, she asks her boss to recommend her. This sounds like the perfect solution for her for the summer. A young single mother, Olivia is concerned about her 10-year-old daughter Tess who just doesn't seem to fit in with her classmates. This will be the perfect opportunity for Tess and a good interim position for Olivia while she looks for another, more permanent position. Besides, after restoring all these photos she feels she knows Natalie's family - and is curious, wanting to learn more. The job as Natalie's assistant is idyllic for Olivia. She finds a tutor who is experienced in teaching dyslexic children like Tess, Carl can teach Tess tennis, and she is signed up for sailing lessons at the local yacht club. And Olivia fits right in - the Rhode Island vineyard has been having a rash of quitting employees -- and Olivia is thrown right into the mess and acts as if she's always worked there. As Olivia helps Natalie write her memoirs, she learns more of the mystery of her life - why did she marry Alexander Seebring when she had been so in love with Carl, her childhood friend and teenager love interest? More of a mystery though is Simon Burke, the brooding son of Carl. Simon has been managing the vineyard for the past six years and keeps busy with the work which has become his life after the tragic death of his wife and daughter in a sailing accident four years previously. Barbara Delinsky is a master at creating an emotional story - and with THE VINEYARD she gives readers two romances - the one of Carl and Natalie told mostly in backstory through the book Olivia is helping Natalie write, and the budding relationship between Simon and Olivia. Readers who are able to get through the first part of the book will be richly rewarded by a beautiful story. She details the workings of a Rhode Island vineyard so vividly readers could easily visualize the setting and smell the grapes. I am now itching to read the books in Delinsky's backlist that I've missed.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth your time!
Review: I feel a little disloyal in saying I actually like this book better than Lake News - another Delinsky favorite of mine. This book is wonderfully-well developed - a great storyline, great characters, great dialog ... what more do we need?!? I loved Olivia - quirky, but also strong, determined and a fierce protector of her daughter. I loved Simon - intelligent, hard-working and dealing with his tragedies in the only way he knows how. I also loved the other main female character, Natalie, who at 76 is more than eager to begin the next chapter of her own life. The aspect I like best of the Delinsky novels I have read is the reality of them. She writes in such a style that I, the reader, am a part of the books. I really get to know the characters; I can imagine myself in the settings, i.e., walking among the rows of grapevines, or sitting at the 4th of July picnic. I know just how Tess looks with her thick glasses on - smudged & halfway down her nose; I know just how Olivia's heart jumps as she starts to fall in love. The other thing I really like about Barbara Delinsky is that she doesn't rely on the "power of the author" to just make things happen. Her characters grow and learn on their own; happy endings don't "just happen," they come about through the efforts of her characters. I get so tired of contrived, trite plots & heros & heroines who, after 300 pages of missing each other and misunderstanding each other and lost opportunities and other loves, finally in the last 20 pages find everlasting love & passion. You won't get that in The Vineyard ... what you get are wonderful, realistic people who (just like us) have something to offer to each other and, in so doing, make the world a little better place.
Rating: 
Summary: Harlequin Delinsky
Review: Please understand; this woman can write. But good writing can never overcome bad plot. Even Shakespeare couldn't pull that off!
This story is so incredibly predictable that the journey to the end of a 350 page book palled long before the destination was reached. The one interesting device (the story within a story.. the historical tale) was certainly not enough a strong enough vehicle to carry the lump of the main tale. I've enjoyed several of Delinsky's works, but this one just became boring; I'll be more careful before I purchase the next.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read!
Review: I can't think of one thing to change about this book. It was so good, vintage Delinsky. I have read half a dozen books by her and she never disappoints.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT People-Book
Review: Asquonset Vineyard, Rhode Island. Six months after the death of her husband of 58 years, Natalie Seebring announces her intentions to marry Carl Burke, a man she's known since childhood, a man who's been her vineyard manager for the past 35 years. Naturally, Natalie's grown children, Susanne and Greg, are shocked and disturbed by the sudden news. Natalie decides to hire someone for the summer to help write her memoirs in time for her Labor Day wedding. She hopes her story will explain to her children what she's been through in her 76 years and what she's feeling now. At 35, Olivia Jones is a single mother working hard to provide for her 10-year-old daughter Tess. Olivia knows art and photography. She's been doing photo restoration for Natalie Seebring for months, although they've never met. Through her work, Olivia has grown very attached to the Seebring family. She can only imagine what each family member is like and imagines herself as a Seebring herself. She jumps at the job offer to work at the vineyard for the summer. The pay will be more than enough to hire tutors to help Tess with her dyslexia. With Olivia at her side, pen in hand, Natalie's story of love, heartache, struggle and perseverance slowly unfolds, revealing a few secrets along the way. Meanwhile, Olivia is searching for her own mother as well as dealing with Carl's son, Simon, now the vineyard manager. Simon lost his wife and daughter 4 years ago in a sailing accident and having Olivia around with young Tess only stirs up the pain he's worked so hard to bury. This is truly a story so well told that you laugh at times and cry at others. There's so much detail on a variety of topics. The reader learns a bit about growing grapes, sailing, hurricanes, the Great Depression and World War II. Each character is so well-written, I feel that if I were ever in Rhode Island, I could simply drive up and pay the Seebrings a visit. Great people book.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read Anytime
Review: This novel is a great light read. The story flows, the characters come alive, and the setting is magnificently described. What I liked most about the story was that it didn't necessarily go where I thought it might. Refreshingly creative and a buy not borrow book. Vacation with The Vineyard and you will quite pleased about your selection. I look forward to my next Barbara Delinsky read!
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