The Vineyard: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "ON WHAT HAD BEGUN as just another June day in Manhattan, Susanne Seebring Malloy returned to her Upper East Side brownstone after lunch with friends..." (more)
Key Phrases: epiphanous experience, vineyard manager, handsome stipend, Great House, New York, Anne Marie (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like a glass of good pinot noir, Barbara Delinsky's The Vineyard is best enjoyed slowly. The Vineyard follows the triumphs and tragedies of the Seebrings, a wealthy family of vintners in Rhode Island. The story begins when recently widowed, 76-year-old Natalie Seebring announces her scandalous engagement to none other than the vineyard manager, Carl, whose social standing is, needless to say, several notches beneath the Seebrings'. Natalie's children, Susanne and Greg, are furious with their mother for marrying the help, and only six months after their father's death.

Besides her remarriage, Natalie is working on a family history project, one she hopes will explain all the love and loss she has endured before reaching happiness at long last. She recruits Olivia Jones to help with the project, and Olivia and her daughter Tess move out to the vineyard for the summer. Tension builds with the summer heat as the wedding approaches. To make matters worse, Carl's son Simon, the new vineyard manager, is coldly resentful of Olivia and Tess, who remind him of the wife and daughter he has lost. But amidst all this, Natalie Seebring's long-buried past is slowly revealed, and like a summer storm, the truth blows through the vineyard, leaving everything different in its wake.

Barbara Delinsky says she was influenced by Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation in writing The Vineyard, and Natalie Seebring is a fine tribute to the strong, silent Americans who made so many sacrifices during World War II. Keep a hankie close by when reading this one. Family tragedy, unlikely romance, and old wrongs finally made right will have you laughing and crying. --Francine McBride

From Publishers Weekly

Wine makers call its meritage: the commingling of several varietal wines into a product that can be marketed as a brand name, year after year. With this novel, the latest of 60-plus, veteran writer Delinsky has once again done exactly that, producing a fan-pleasing blend. At 35, Olivia Jones is a restorer of old photographs, and the mother, via a brief relationship, of a dyslexic, unhappy and bratty 10-year-old named Tess. Herself the daughter of a single mother who checked out as soon as Olivia turned 18, Olivia fantasizes about being related to Natalie Seebring, a client who is the strong-willed and manipulative matriarch of a dysfunctional family of Rhode Island wine makers. When Natalie offers to hire Olivia to be her memoirist and "personal buffer" for a summer, she jumps at the chance. Soon she is embroiled in the turmoil caused when septuagenarian widow Natalie decides to marry former vineyard manager Carl Burke. Natalie's middle-aged children object loudly, and several family employees resign in protest. Meanwhile, Olivia is attracted to Carl's son (and successor as vineyard manager), Simon, who has become a solitary workaholic since the death of his entire family four years earlier in a sailing accident. The only suspense in the slow-moving plot comes at the end, when a hurricane threatens the wine crop, coinciding with the emotional storms produced by Natalie's easily anticipated revelations about her early life; the style is undistinguished, replete with clich?s and italics. Readers who prefer full-bodied novels are likely to find this story bland, thin and cloying. Those fond of literary Beaujolais nouveau, however, to be gulped down on a summer's day without critique, will enjoy this practiced blend of pop psychology, wine-making lore, learning-disability theory and sensuality. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Printing edition (June 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684864843
• ISBN-13: 978-0684864846
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #102,117 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #14 in

  Books > Romance > Authors, A-Z > ( D ) > Delinsky, Barbara

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another book from Barbara Delinsky which I hated to finish!, June 7, 2000

By	Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" (NJ) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

One problem I've had when reading a book by Barbara Delinsky is that the end comes too quickly and I'm left waiting anxiously for the next new title. In the meantime, though, any reader will find as I have, that Ms. Delinsky's books are wonderful adventures and her newest book,The Vineyard, is no exception. In my opinion, it may very well be one of Ms. Delisnky's very best books.

As you read this book find out as I did that The Vineyard is filled with memorable characters and a unique place, Rhode Island wine country. And then savor this book as you would any fine wine. For within the book's pages, Ms. Delinsky introduces us to two characters, Natalie Seebring and Olivia Jones, whom we will come to know and remember. These women, from different lifestyles and years apart chronologically, will not only come to learn from one another but will also become bound to one another.

Thank you Ms. Delinsky for this wonderful read and please don't make me wait too long for your next book.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another great one, June 15, 2000

By	Carole Snyder (Northeast Ohio) - See all my reviews

I won't go over plot...the other reviewers have already done so. I just wanted to add my own agreement to how wonderful this new book is. Like another reviewer, I tried my best to read the book slowly, but before I knew it, the book was over.

What I have liked about Barbara Delinsky's books, and particular the last few---Coast Road, and Lake News, it that I so easily find myself immersed in the setting. Many authors make this a minor part of the book, but she just draws me in to where I can picture myself part of the book. And after each book, I'm ready to move to the location of the setting.

The characters are wonderful although I found Tess somewhat annoying. I especially enjoyed Tess, because like me, she is a dreamer.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite storyteller pens another winner, June 12, 2000

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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