Author: Cathy Bramley
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Transworld
Publication Date: 21st March 2019
Rating: 5 Stars
London has not been kind to Lottie Allbright. Realising it’s time to cut and run, she packs up and moves back home – but finds her family in disarray. In need of a new place to stay, Lottie takes up the offer of a live-in job managing a local vineyard. There’s a lot to learn – she didn’t even know grapes could grow so far north!
Butterworth Wines in the rolling Derbyshire hills has always been run on love and passion but a tragic death has left everyone at a loss. Widowed Betsy is trying to keep the place afloat but is harbouring a debilitating secret. Meanwhile her handsome but interfering grandson, Jensen, is trying to convince her to sell up and move into a home.
Lottie’s determined to save Butterworth Wines, but with all this and an unpredictable English summer to deal with, it’ll be a challenge.
And that’s before she discovers something that will turn her summer – and her world – upside down . . .
Butterworth Wines in the rolling Derbyshire hills has always been run on love and passion but a tragic death has left everyone at a loss. Widowed Betsy is trying to keep the place afloat but is harbouring a debilitating secret. Meanwhile her handsome but interfering grandson, Jensen, is trying to convince her to sell up and move into a home.
Lottie’s determined to save Butterworth Wines, but with all this and an unpredictable English summer to deal with, it’ll be a challenge.
And that’s before she discovers something that will turn her summer – and her world – upside down . . .
Because I love this author so much, I downloaded the book without reading the blurb, and then started reading it still without having a look at a blurb. From the title I think I was expecting something perhaps featuring vintage clothes, and evidently I didn't look at the cover properly, or vineyards may have come to mind!
We meet Lottie in London, as the groundskeeper of a crematorium and trying to desperately keep her boyfriend happy. I took an instant dislike to Harvey and it was well grounded, and I cheered when Lottie made the decision to move back to Derbyshire to be closer to her family.
Little did she realise at the time that it would be the best decision she ever makes and she ends up living and working at Butterworth Wines, and learning all about viticulture.
It is once we are the the vineyards that the book really gets going, and I loved the wide variety of people who volunteered at this family business,. All of which I loved getting to know, especially Betsy and Majorie who are widowed ladies who are hoping to see the vineyard through one last summer and harvest.
Betsy and Majorie are a real pair, so close to each other and listening to them bicker is always amusing.
While Lottie is getting to know this new business, and the readers are learning all about the English Wine industry, we are also getting to know Jensen, Betsy's grandson. And is he who will be so key to many of the outcomes of the book.
I loved this look at an English vineyard, and it has all of Cathy Bramley's warmth, love, good feeling, excellent writing, easy to picture settings and people and just everything you want for a wonderful and charming book.
In some respects I felt it was slow to get going properly, ie, to get to the key bits of the book, the moving to Derbyshire, but it was a highly engaging and enjoyable slow start, and it was all relevant and key information, that would help you empathise with Lottie later in the story.
This is vintage Cathy Bramley through and through and I urge her fans, and those new to the author to give this a go if you want an incredibly enjoyable story and a lovely feeling at the end of it.
Thank you to Transworld and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
Please do take some time to follow along with all the other lovely bloggers taking part on this tour.
We meet Lottie in London, as the groundskeeper of a crematorium and trying to desperately keep her boyfriend happy. I took an instant dislike to Harvey and it was well grounded, and I cheered when Lottie made the decision to move back to Derbyshire to be closer to her family.
Little did she realise at the time that it would be the best decision she ever makes and she ends up living and working at Butterworth Wines, and learning all about viticulture.
It is once we are the the vineyards that the book really gets going, and I loved the wide variety of people who volunteered at this family business,. All of which I loved getting to know, especially Betsy and Majorie who are widowed ladies who are hoping to see the vineyard through one last summer and harvest.
Betsy and Majorie are a real pair, so close to each other and listening to them bicker is always amusing.
While Lottie is getting to know this new business, and the readers are learning all about the English Wine industry, we are also getting to know Jensen, Betsy's grandson. And is he who will be so key to many of the outcomes of the book.
I loved this look at an English vineyard, and it has all of Cathy Bramley's warmth, love, good feeling, excellent writing, easy to picture settings and people and just everything you want for a wonderful and charming book.
In some respects I felt it was slow to get going properly, ie, to get to the key bits of the book, the moving to Derbyshire, but it was a highly engaging and enjoyable slow start, and it was all relevant and key information, that would help you empathise with Lottie later in the story.
This is vintage Cathy Bramley through and through and I urge her fans, and those new to the author to give this a go if you want an incredibly enjoyable story and a lovely feeling at the end of it.
Thank you to Transworld and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
Please do take some time to follow along with all the other lovely bloggers taking part on this tour.
Oh, Rachel thank you for this lovely review, I'm thrilled that you enjoyed A Vintage Summer. I'm really grateful to you for your support, not just with this book, but with so many of mine in the past too. xx
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for supporting the Blog Tour Rachel x
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