Review: These Tangled Vines

These Tangled Vines by Julianne MacLean
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fiona is barely scraping by, ever since her mother Lillian died over a decade ago, trying to keep herself afloat whilst also helping three full-time carers look after her paraplegic father Freddie when his disability and insurance doesn't quite cover everything he needs.

Then out of the blue she receives a phone call from an Italian law firm, her biological father Anton has died and left her something in his will. Lillian only told Fiona on her deathbed that Freddie was not her biological father, but swore her to secrecy because she feared that Freddie would lose the will to live if he found out Fiona was not his daughter. Not knowing anything more, Fiona assumes the worst about her conception.

Full of trepidation Fiona travels to Anton's vineyard in Tuscany for the reading of the will and meets her two half-siblings for the first time. Although Anton's family are incensed to have discovered Fiona's existence, and his very generous bequest, the people who work in the vineyard are more hospitable. Anton's lawyer refers to 'letters' between Lillian and Anton which explain the reason for the bequest and Fiona's half-brother Connor becomes obsessed with finding them, certain they prove that Lillian was blackmailing Anton (on absolutely no evidence). Fiona too wants to understand the relationship between Anton and Lillian, and what happened over thirty years ago - a summer that changed everyone's life forever.

Told partially from Lillian's POV in 1986 and partially from Fiona's POV in 2017 this is a saga of love, betrayal and sacrifice. I liked it, but I didn't love it. Others have pointed out some errors in geography, or the fact that every single Italian speaks faultless English, I didn't notice the errors (not being familiar with the geography of Florida) and since Anton was English originally I assumed all his employees spoke English with him. Nevertheless, both Fiona and Lillian (and Anton to a certain extent) were just too self-sacrificing and noble to be true. In fact, despite how many of the characters were portrayed, I think only one didn't have some kind of redemption.

Anyway, it was free on Amazon Prime and certainly made me wish I was in Tuscany eating glorious food and supping wine.

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