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Summary: The Vineyard
Review: This was the first book I have read by Barbara Delinsky and I'm looking forward to reading her others. I enjoyed this book very much. It was a clean, refreshing book with a good down to earth story. It is the kind of book that "after you have finished it, you wish you hadn't yet, so you could go on enjoying it."It was very easy to get into. It started getting into the story on page 1. No wading in. I'm glad I read it. Benita Miller
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Summary: Made me feel like part of the family
Review: Olivia is hard at work restoring photos when the offer comes for her and her 10-year-old daughter to spend the summer with her manager's friend, a 76-year old woman named Natalie. Natalie owns a vineyard and has spent the last 71 years of her life deeply involved with this vineyard, making sacrifices and dealing with the toils and joys of farming life. Olivia has been hired to write Natalie's memoirs and to try to help Natalie's children, Susanne and Greg, understand why their mother wants to get married again after their father has been dead only six months. There's also a tall, dark, and handsome stranger (the vineyard manager) who is going to play some part in Olivia's life in the upcoming months, but that's to be expected of a Delinsky novel. This book takes us deeply inside the ups and downs of family life. We get to see husbands and wives trying to work things out, and we also see children learning to accept their mother. Barbara Delinsky gives us a look into the heart of a family and brings new meaning to the phrase "blood is thicker than water." This is a relationship-driven book instead of a plot-driven book; the plot is virtually nonexistent. I felt like I knew the characters. At the end of the book I wanted to have a conversation with Natalie, and I also wanted to see if Greg and Jill were able to work things out with their marriage. The book made me feel included in their lives. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes relationship novels and likes feeling included in a book. I would also recommend it to people who like sweet (although gratuitous) romance.
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Summary: The Content was as lovely as the cover
Review: When I first opened The Vineyard, I didn't know I was going to be making new friends. That's how the characters seemed to me and I hated saying goodbye. When Olivia Jones worked on restoring Natalie Seebring's old pictures, she made up a family for herself using the people in the photos. Her own mother ignored her for most of her life, then abandoned her when she graduated from high school. When she married a man more interested in his work than her and their daughter, the pattern continued up until his death. Then his parents refused to believe Jessie was their son's daughter. Added to all this, Jessie had dyslexia and couldn't get ahead in school or make friends. It was at this stage of Olivia's life when Natalie Seebring hired her to come write a book of her life story. Natalie and her hired employee announced their upcoming wedding six months after Natalie's husband died. Natalie's children felt betrayed and hurt and wondered if she had been having an affair while their father was alive. Always the quiet one, Natalie thinks if she puts her story down on paper, maybe they will understand why she is marrying Carl. Olivia brings her daughter to live at the vineyard that Natalie owns, expecting a large family atmosphere. What she finds are phone calls from Natalie's children that Natalie refuses to take and hostility from the vineyard manager who believes Natalie is playing match maker for himself and Olivia. The story develops beautifully from here as we learn Natalie's story and how it makes Olivia emerge from her dream world and face reality. This is one book where the romance wasn't overdone but added to the beauty of the book.
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Summary: Like Good Wine Barbara gets Better snd Better
Review: I discovered Barbara Delinsky about a year ago...since I have gone out and bought every one of her books and have enjoyed them all...and like a good wine she gets better and better... In my oppinion the Vineyard is the best to date....she has a way of having her characters draw you into their lives...the characters in The Vinyard are real life..... Natalie tells her story to Olivia who is writing the story....through this story she is able to slowly get her family back into her life...... It is a tale that keeps you turning the pages...it is a story that you will remember.... I highly recommend it....
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Summary: family oriented romance
Review: This is one of the better books by Barbara Delinsky. It involves the development of family values and thoughts as well as a romance. There are two seperate romances in this book and both are thought provoking. A great book.
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Summary: Enjoyable, but predictable
Review: It's been a few weeks since I finished this novel and have decided that although enjoyable, it's not the best I've read this year. I loved each of the characters, the setting and the story, which held my interest to the very end. This book deals with relationships between various Seebring family members and close friends. It also touches on the idea that as in real life, not all IS as it SEEMS. Unless it's your relationship, it may not have the dynamic that you think it does. Although a good book, this one does not touch on family relationships as well as "My Mother's Daughter" by Judith Henry Wall.
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Summary: A Very Pleased Reader
Review: This book is interesting and is full of surprises.Here is what it is about. Olivia Jones is a mom who is going to work with a woman named Natalie Seebring. Olivia thinks that Natalie lives a good life. But Olivia is brought in to assist Natalie in a Memoir Olivia fines out her life is not so easy. This book is a complex one yet it is one of the best books of the summer. This is a must read!
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Summary: It was good - not great, but good.
Review: Okay, I have yet to read another Barbara Delinsky book, so I only have other authors' writings to compare to. The overall story was easy to read, entertaining and realistic - the characters were likable, and the premise was generally believable. It just seemed to - generic - for me, I guess. No outstanding characters - Olivia, the main, was the typical single mother hurt by men and determined to make it on her own. Natalie was the matriarch whose work went unacknowledged for most of her life. I felt like I had met all of these people before, but maybe that was the idea. The climax of the story was great, and while I expected it to happen (I won't give anything away, I promise!) - it was done with finesse. Overall, I would like to read another Barbara Delinsky book, if only to compare notes.
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Summary: Bountiful Harvest
Review: A certain romantic mystique is created by setting a book in a vineyard. It's impossible to say what is more intoxicating: the allure of a pastoral countryside, the attraction of a self-sustaining empire or the culture and richness of fine wines and fine living. That said, Barbara Delinsky is trying to re-create a mid-Atlantic Tuscany in the subject of her latest novel, "The Vineyard". Natalie Seebring is the mature matriarch of the Aquionset Vineyard in Rhode Island. Recently widowed, she decides her life, like her vineyard, has entered a new growing season, to the dismay of her staid, adult children. Hoping to convince them of the sincerity of her plans, she pens a memoir, with the help of a newly-hired personal assistant, Olivia Jones, who moves to the vineyard for the summer with her precocious daughter, Tess, looking to harvest a unique professional opportunity and quality time in a loving, family atmosphere. But the Seebring family, as a whole, is not particularly loving, and Olivia's initial naivete in this regard is only surpassed by her hope to make a difference in the life of her young daughter and to Natalie Seebring. Barbara Delinsky writes typically in the romance genre, and although "The Vineyard" is consistent with the familiar pattern, it is not her best effort. Her last work, "Lake News", offered a modicum of suspense and intrigue to bolster the standard "she hates him, then loves him" romance fare. In comparison, "The Vineyard" offers little more than predictable family secrets to tantalize the reader, which have little impact on the dynamic of the current Seebring family or Olivia's interactions within it. I was disappointed in the story's lack of complexity on this level; its attempt to be a scenic, literary vacation at a beautiful vineyard cannot sustain the otherwise vacuous plot. But the important issue for most romance lovers: does a satisfying romantic relationship develop between likeable characters? Yes! I enjoyed meeting all the characters in "The Vineyard", and the relationships which grow between them are romances, both literally and figuratively. I disagree with the book jacket, which said that Natalie was not the "motherly type"; she is warm and caring, despite turmoil in her own close family. Olivia, as a single mother, faces life's challenges with a quiet strength and determination, although she is often overwhelmed and insecure. Tess, who struggles with a learning disability, possesses the extremes of boldness and shyness typical in a 10-year-old girl. But you are always hopeful that, with care and attention, the time Olivia and Tess spend at the vineyard might ripen into something sweet. I can marginally recommend "The Vineyard". I liked "Lake News" better, but this latest work is a pleasant diversion. Although I have only read these two books by Barbara Delinsky, I trust that she will continue to write books which warm the heart, rather than try to be prophetic or challenging. I will choose Delinsky again for an indulgent escape.
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Summary: anther winner from Barbara Delinsky
Review: I could not put this book down. The story is a real portrait of what families can become without nourishment. The young girl character and her problem touched the teacher in me. The mother and tutor showed great love and patience to this struggling little girl. I also loved the grace and dignity of Natalie who wasn't afraid to work hard and tell the truth about her role in the history of the vineyard. The characters and their interactions made melaugh and cry. As usually Barbara Delinsky told a wonderful tale.
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