The death of Australian wine tycoon Jock Witney leaves his empire on the brink of financial ruin and his family exhausted by his tyrannical management of both his business and their personal lives. Faced with the potential of either bankruptcy or an unfriendly takeover by a French conglomerate, the family debates their fate. Fearful of losing their livelihood and lavish lifestyle, they let their emotions run high, and bickering nears the boiling point. Jock's widow, Cordelia, finally demands an adjournment to look at other options. While the rest of the family smolders, Cordelia goes on a walkabout to a distant vineyard with her granddaughter, Sophia. More than a sentimental journey, this trip allows Cordelia both to gain Sophia as an ally and share with her the colorful history of the family and the vast Jacaranda Vines estate. Cordelia recounts the saga of generations who built the empire from tiny cuttings brought from France and Germany, which were planted by prisoners and fugitives and then nurtured through onslaughts of weather, wildlife, and poachers. As in Matilda's Last Waltz (LJ 8/00), McKinley paints a vast canvas of the Australian landscape, complete with colorful, well-drawn characters, sharp historical detail, and enough action and passion to capture and hold a wide audience.

Received with many thanks from q-cow. I really enjoyed Matilda's Last Waltz so I'm looking forward to this one.

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Edit September 14th, 2007: I've finally started this book. Only thirty or so pages in, but enjoying it so far - should be a pretty quick read. More when I'm done...

Well, this ended up taking me quite a long time to read as it just didn't really grab me. I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as Matilda's Last Waltz. The story itself wasn't bad, but I found the writing irritating - the same turns of phrase would be used several times within several pages, and the many, many typos (in one instance even the wrong name was used for a character) were also annoying. I felt the whole book could have been a good deal shorter, and I'd guessed what the final big twist would be before I was 50 pages in. There was also the occasional moment of unbelievability. I had to giggle when the weather for the first day of vintage was apparently predicted to be 46 degrees - virtually unheard of for Queensland, let alone South Australia.

Overall it was an ok, easy enough read, but I'm really hoping that the other two Tamara McKinley's I have here are going to be of a better standard.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Posted to ekke in South Africa as part of an RABCK/Trade. Sent Airmail so shouldn't take too long to arrive.

I received this book on Monday, but didn't have access to Internet to make a JE. Thanks, tantan. I'm looking forward to reading it!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

A wishlist RABCK to MissTerry.

Apologies for taking so long to register this catch - the book arrived last week. To be started immediately. Many thanks again for sending this to me.

I have to agree with previous journal entries - an easy read, but definately not Tamara McKinley's best work. I too also picked up at least one typo. Still I am glad to have received it as a RABCK so thanks once again to ekke for sending this to me.