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everydaytrish 's review for:
The Winemaker's Wife
by Kristin Harmel
“The Winemaker’s Wife” by Kristin Harmel is a dual timeline novel that primarily follows the lives of three women: Ines and Celine live and work on a French winery during WWII, and Liv is a recently divorced 40-something that has been whisked away to France by her eccentric grandmother in the present day. While Liv knows nothing of Ines or Celine, she’s about to find out how deeply connected they all are.
I thought this novel did a good job of blending historical fiction with contemporary storytelling. And the author made good use of the dual timeline. The stories seemed to flow naturally together. And while the plot felt somewhat predictable, it left enough of a mystery that I wasn’t 100% sure how all the narratives would merge together in the end.
But there was just something missing. The plot was interesting and there were many emotionally gripping moments, but it was hard to really connect with any of the characters. To put it bluntly, they were just unlikable most of the time. Where there should have been interesting and well-developed personalities, we got ones that were one-dimensional and cliched.
While I didn’t love this book, and wish the characters had been developed differently, the story was interesting enough that I still found it enjoyable. But will I still be thinking about this book in a day or two? Probably not.
Also, a couple of content cautions:
There are a few scenes that mention and/or describe sexual intimacy, but it’s nothing overly graphic.
There is one scene with an attempted sexual assault.
I thought this novel did a good job of blending historical fiction with contemporary storytelling. And the author made good use of the dual timeline. The stories seemed to flow naturally together. And while the plot felt somewhat predictable, it left enough of a mystery that I wasn’t 100% sure how all the narratives would merge together in the end.
But there was just something missing. The plot was interesting and there were many emotionally gripping moments, but it was hard to really connect with any of the characters. To put it bluntly, they were just unlikable most of the time. Where there should have been interesting and well-developed personalities, we got ones that were one-dimensional and cliched.
While I didn’t love this book, and wish the characters had been developed differently, the story was interesting enough that I still found it enjoyable. But will I still be thinking about this book in a day or two? Probably not.
Also, a couple of content cautions:
There are a few scenes that mention and/or describe sexual intimacy, but it’s nothing overly graphic.
There is one scene with an attempted sexual assault.