I finished this book only because it was an Amazon First Reads and I felt under an obligation to finish it after having downloaded it. I thought it was an interesting concept but the story bored me so much so that I took a break in the middle and read something else!
A lot of the story is told from the point of view of the main character, Elena, and I just didn't believe in her. It possibly didn't help that there is a lot of telling and quite a lot of repetition. Even where there is an idea for a scene that could have been dramatised for us, showing us the point the author wanted to make about Elena's mentor, it is simply told to us - in the past, as if the author suddenly remembered she wanted to Elena to draw on that evidence so had to add the scene in.
There is almost no sense of place nor time. The vineyard owner looks through his "Boddington's catalog (sic)" and neither I nor Wikipedia has any idea what that is or was - Boddington's is a beer in the UK and might well have been a catalogue in the USA but it doesn't sound like it would be used in France. There is a reference to the flight of Bleriot, which took place in 1909, and to French suffragette women whose organisation was founded in the same year, so I guess it is then but it didn't feel like that era. One of the key women's dress is described and, again, that gave some sense of the time period but it stood out to me as one incident in a desert.
The author chose to use very little French, which I think is a good idea. The French she did use was wrong: "mon petite" in chapter 9 and "etranger" (addressed to Elena) in chapter 12. These are little niggles in one sense but they distracted me and dislodged me from the terroir of the book, as it were. Ironic, given the subject matter.
As I said, there was a good concept in the story but the execution didn't do it justice.
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Customer reviews
Vineyards, witches, hexes, wine & love.... brilliant debut, I loved it!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 October 2019
Absolutely devoured this book over the weekend. Utterly drawn in from the first page and through to the end. I can’t wait for the next book from Luanne Smith.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 October 2019
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