THE VINEYARD

    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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
作者简介：BARBARA DELINSKY has published more than sixty-six novels since the 1980s, including, most recently, Lake News, Coast Road, Three Wishes ,A Woman's Place ,For My Daughters,a nd more than Friends. Published in twenty-five languages and More Than Friends. Published in twenty-five languages world wide ,her books regularly appear on the bestseller listes of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post ,and Publishers Weekly. Delinsky is a lifelong New Englander. She and her Husband have three sons.Readers can write to her at P.O.Box 812894, Wellesley,Massachusetts, USA 02482-0026.

Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Barbara Delinsky has written her most complex and emotionally rewarding novel: a story of two women, a generation apart, each of whose dream becomes bound with the other's.To her family, Natalie Seebring is a woman who prizes appearances: exquisitely mannered,a supportive wife, and head of a successful wine-producing entreprise. So when she annouces plans to marry a vineyard employer mere months after the death of her husband of fifty-eight years, her son and daughter are stunned. Faced with their disapproval, Natalie decides to write a memoir.

Olivia Jones is a dreamer, living vicariously through the old photographs she restores. She and her daughters, Tess, cling to the fantasy that a big, happy family is out there just waiting for them. When Natalie hires Olivia to help with her memoir, a summer at Natalie's vineyard by the sea seems the perfect opportunity to live out that fantasy. But all is not as it seems.

As the illusion of an idyllic existence comes crashing headlong into reality, the lives of these two women,parallel in so many ways, become a powerful and moving story.

From Booklist
High drama, beautiful scenery, and resilient yet sensitive characters make this a must for all Delinsky fans and a perfect introduction to her work for new readers.

From Publishers Weekly
Delinsky plots this satisfying, gentle romance with the sure hand of an expert, scattering shady pasts and dark secrets among some of her characters while giving others destructive family patterns and difficult family dynamics to contend with.

About Author
Barbara Delinsky has published more than sixty-six novels since the 1980s, including, most recently, Lake News, Coast Road, Three Wishes, A Woman's Place, For My Daughters, and More Than Friends. Published in twenty-five languages worldwide, her books regularly appear on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly.Barbara Delinsky is a lifelong New Englander. She and her husband have three sons. Readers can write to her at P.O. Box 812894, Wellesly, Massachusetts, USA 02482-0026; or visit her Web site: www.barbaradelinsky.com.