Book Review: Vintage by Olivia Darling

Vintage follows three women who enter the man's world of wine-making, well champagne making to be exact. Madeleine Arsenault is the daughter of a French champagne-maker, and is left his vineyard when he dies. Madeleine wants to produce a vintage wine of her own, and is determined to prove her critics, who don't believe a woman can create a great wine, wrong and to rise to the top of her game.

Kelly Elson, a chambermaid in a hotel is also left a vineyard in a will, but unlike Madeleine, she doesn't want anything to do with it. Under the guidance of trustee Hilarian and and vineyard keeper Guy, she decides maybe there is something to be done in the wine business after all.

Finally, we have Christina Morgan, an American supermodel whose marriage is in tatters, much like her career. Christina only takes on the vineyard as she has nothing else to do, but quickly realises she enjoys the work of making a new bottle of wine, and is determined to make a success of her vineyard.

The three female lead characters are all incredibly different, yet all have the same aims despite their different backgrounds and initial attitudes to their situations. Written in the third person, the book flicks easily between the characters in a comfortable reading style which transports you into the glamorous lives of the women. By the end, you are left feeling real empathy for all the women, and are completely absorbed in the story, feeling every emotion along with them. My favourite was certainly Madeleine, with her steely determination to succeed against the odds. However, all were likeable (although not at first in my opinion!) and even though they are all so different, worked well inside the story together.

I must admit it took me quite a while to get into this book. The start wasn't overly captivating, and left me a bit cold, so much so that I was able to put it down and not be desperate to pick it up again. However when I got past the first quarter of the book, it took a turn and drew me in - I just didn't want to put it down! You were suddenly thrown deep into the lives of the women - almost as if the author suddenly grabbed hold of what she was writing and took it on a complete u-turn from average to amazing!

The book does contain some quite graphic sex scenes as well, which don't seem out of place in the book. They aren't overly gratuitous and manage to fit in perfectly where they are written, so it doesn't seem like they are there purely for the sake of it. There is some coarse language used, but that seems to be commonplace in novels these days, so nothing too unusual there. Despite these scenes, romance isn't actually a main theme through the book, more a sub-theme, but it fits in well with the book and adds a different angle to the story as well as the wine-making side. Luckily, the author doesn't go into too much detail about wine-making, giving us just enough knowledge that we can understand the very basic processes without boring us!

Overall, once I got past the shaky start, I was thoroughly gripped by the book and really enjoyed what I was reading. The story was easy to follow, despite quite a lot of characters appearing throughout the book, and I think this is a credit to the author Olivia Darling. A very sexy fun read, not to be taken too seriously, but makes for very pleasant reading! I really enjoyed it and I was actually quite sad to turn the final page!

Rating: 4/5

Note: Olivia Darling is a pseudonym of author Chris Manby.

Book Review: Priceless by Olivia Darling

Lizzy, Carrie and Serena all adore their art, but that's where the comparison between these three feisty women ends.

Lizzy Duffy works for Ludbrook's, a small London auctioneers and is a talented young woman working her way up through the ranks. She has a thing for her boss Nat Wilde, but is he giving Lizzy the chance to show off her real potential? Carrie Klein works for New York Auction house Ehrenpreis, and jumps at the chance to open their first London office, putting her in direct competition with Ludbrooks. But Carrie is determined to make it a success, whatever the personal cost to herself.

And finally Serena is an artist, a very good one in fact, living in Cornwall with her daughter after a messy divorce. But someone is about to get wise to Serena's talent for copying very old and famous paintings, and not necessarily for good...

Rating: 5/5

I am not a fan of art myself and I did wonder if this would impair my enjoyment of the book at all, but I am glad to say that it didn't! You don't need to know anything about art to enjoy this, because Darling has really done her research and explains everything you need to know about painting and the world of auction houses as she goes along. This allows you to just sit back and soak up the fantastic stories, and possibly learning a little something along the way as well...even better!

Olivia Darling has continued the format of her previous and debut novel Vintage, choosing to build a story around three different women all in the same world but without necessarily knowing each other. I found this worked well for her in that book, and it proved successful for her once again in this book, even more so perhaps. The books starts off very confidently, none of the slow start here that I found in Vintage. Darling has clearly found her flair for writing, and the story is incredibly readable, and I did struggle to put it down of an evening. One thing I really enjoyed was the references back to Vintage, such as the champagne used in this book, and a returning character as well, cleverly done by the author!

The characters were all well written, and I liked all of them for different reasons. Lizzy did annoy me at times as you can see she is more talented that she shows, but as of halfway through I enjoyed the different direction Darling took her in. Carrie was my favourite character, a ruthless businesswomen prepared to prove everyone wrong about how talented she is. Serena was completely different from the other two - she was far more vulnerable and perhaps the one most women reading this will be able to relate to, with a much more normal life and consequently I warmed to her quite quickly and easily. The men in the book were not nice people at all. Nat Wilde is Lizzy's boss and a complete sleaze, Julian Trebarwen is Serena's neighbour; an ex-con out to make as much money as he can, and Mathieu Randon, a character from Vintage makes a reappearance in this but is completely different to the Randon we knew from there.

I loved this book. I found myself getting into the novel extremely quickly and found the subject matter completely fascinating as well. Finding out about auction houses kept my interest, but the author has been careful not to bog you down with too much detail, just giving you enough information to understand the story and follow easily. I actually enjoyed the chapters about Serena the most, as it went into detail about painting and how things are achieved, and she has written this so well! The book is narrated in the third person, which I feel works well because of the three-part storyline, and allows the book to flit back and forth in time as well, as several characters make use of flashbacks in the novel.

If you're looking for a fun and exciting read, then I would definitely recommend you pick up a copy of Priceless. Darling has really honed her skill since writing her debut novel, and this shows in the easy flow and readability of the book. The characters are well crafted, all believable. I actually cared about what happened to them, and for me that's the sign of a very well written book. Darling has clearly gone to a lot of trouble to research the subject matter and that just serves to make an enjoyable book full of fun, sex (not too gratuitous!), travel around the world and a bit of fact too. Highly recommended.