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A review by jenbsbooks
These Tangled Vines by Julianne MacLean
3.5
I liked this a lot, but I'm not sure I'll remember it ... I can absolutely imagine me seeing the title/cover and struggling to recall if this was one I'd read or not, much less recall the storyline. It's why Storygraph is great, keeps my record for me to check!
This had three POVs, the chapters were labeled; Fiona is the main (gets the majority of the chapters), and her story is told in first person. Sloane is in the same timeline (the present), we get an omniscient 3rd person here. Lillian is in the past, also third person. All past tense. A single narrator (Carlotta Brenton - I think I've just heard her once before, The Longest Echo). I might have preferred having different narrators for the Sloan and Lillian chapters, just to provide more "voice" distinction. I did need to glance at my phone/Audible from time to time to remind myself whose "head" we were in (I'm multi-tasking, and stopping/starting up again a lot, easy to lose track).
In some ways, Fiona seemed a little TOO perfect ... caring for her invalid father, keeping a huge secret for her mother, having to head off to Italy for an inheritance from her birth father, who she knows nothing about. There dealing with a couple half-siblings who aren't happy to find out about her, having more difficult situations come up. She just handles everything so well.
With the three different POVs, it was very interesting to get Sloane's background and take on things, the reader would have a different view of her without knowing all that is going on in the background (again Fiona is so nice about it, before she really knows some of the info). Lillian's chapters were interesting, because we/the reader, have quite a bit of knowledge about the future, but no one knows what happened in the past ... we are finding out along with Fiona.
No profanity. Some sex, but pretty closed door (one inappropriate picture sent as well). Other words I watch/notice: rifled, smirk, sneaked ... medieval was said 13 times, which, it was generally an apt description for things there in Italy, but it felt a tad overused. It stood out to me anyway.
Wine plays a big part in this story, a vineyard, they make wine, they drink wine. I grew up molly-mormon, and while never encountering any sort of alcohol, I had the general "romantic" view of wine and champagne and such. I've still never tasted it, but I've smelled it. I've got some sensory issues ... but it smells SO terrible, I can't even imagine trying to drink it. Beyond any religious upbringing, my repugnance for wine now is so absolute, sometimes it's even hard for me to read about it, and people liking it ... I know I'm the weird one, but it's something that's so hard to fathom for me!
3.5 stars I think. While I liked it, I don't know that it's one I'll remember. I probably wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it unless someone was looking for a story along these specific lines. It's not one that I feel I need a copy of for my personal library. There weren't really any quotes or notes/highlights that I felt I needed to stop and record.
This had three POVs, the chapters were labeled; Fiona is the main (gets the majority of the chapters), and her story is told in first person. Sloane is in the same timeline (the present), we get an omniscient 3rd person here. Lillian is in the past, also third person. All past tense. A single narrator (Carlotta Brenton - I think I've just heard her once before, The Longest Echo). I might have preferred having different narrators for the Sloan and Lillian chapters, just to provide more "voice" distinction. I did need to glance at my phone/Audible from time to time to remind myself whose "head" we were in (I'm multi-tasking, and stopping/starting up again a lot, easy to lose track).
In some ways, Fiona seemed a little TOO perfect ... caring for her invalid father, keeping a huge secret for her mother, having to head off to Italy for an inheritance from her birth father, who she knows nothing about. There dealing with a couple half-siblings who aren't happy to find out about her, having more difficult situations come up. She just handles everything so well.
With the three different POVs, it was very interesting to get Sloane's background and take on things, the reader would have a different view of her without knowing all that is going on in the background (again Fiona is so nice about it, before she really knows some of the info). Lillian's chapters were interesting, because we/the reader, have quite a bit of knowledge about the future, but no one knows what happened in the past ... we are finding out along with Fiona.
No profanity. Some sex, but pretty closed door (one inappropriate picture sent as well). Other words I watch/notice: rifled, smirk, sneaked ... medieval was said 13 times, which, it was generally an apt description for things there in Italy, but it felt a tad overused. It stood out to me anyway.
Wine plays a big part in this story, a vineyard, they make wine, they drink wine. I grew up molly-mormon, and while never encountering any sort of alcohol, I had the general "romantic" view of wine and champagne and such. I've still never tasted it, but I've smelled it. I've got some sensory issues ... but it smells SO terrible, I can't even imagine trying to drink it. Beyond any religious upbringing, my repugnance for wine now is so absolute, sometimes it's even hard for me to read about it, and people liking it ... I know I'm the weird one, but it's something that's so hard to fathom for me!
3.5 stars I think. While I liked it, I don't know that it's one I'll remember. I probably wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it unless someone was looking for a story along these specific lines. It's not one that I feel I need a copy of for my personal library. There weren't really any quotes or notes/highlights that I felt I needed to stop and record.