Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

BookBrowse Reviews The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel

The Winemaker's Wife

by Kristin Harmel
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Aug 13, 2019, 400 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Mar 2020, 400 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


Full of betrayal, bravery and redemption, The Winemaker's Wife is a poignant look at the vineyards of WWII-era France, and the story of one family's role in fighting the Nazis.

Liv Kent's world is falling apart. After 12 years of marriage, her husband has decided he's done, and Liv feels like she's lost everything—her job, her marriage, and her chance for children of her own. But she doesn't even have time to get back on her feet before Edith, her 99-year-old French grandmother, arrives, determined to snap Liv out of her funk by whisking her away to France. Or so Liv thinks; as Edith and Liv travel to Reims, a city in the heart of France's wine region, it becomes clear that Edith has a secret, one that threatens to upend everything Liv knows about her family. Thus begins a tale of three women, two trapped in a web of lies and betrayal in Nazi-occupied France, and the other a heartbroken divorcee who must uncover the truth about her grandmother's past before it's too late.

The Winemaker's Wife is told from three different points-of-view—those of Liv, Inés and Céline. These three women are vastly different, and the varying ways in which they define themselves - or in Céline's case, the way she is defined by the Germans - have a significant impact on the choices they make. Inés is the wife of the owner of the Maison Chauveau, but her marriage is falling apart. Her husband, Michel, doesn't trust her, she feels isolated out in the countryside and she'll give the Germans as much wine as they want if it means surviving the war. She would love to befriend Céline, the wife of the Maison's cellar master, but the other woman seems to shun all of Inés' efforts, making her feel even more out of place and unwanted. From Céline's point-of-view, Inés is flighty and clumsy, always making a mess of the work they do to produce wine. Céline is dedicated to the Maison Chauveau and to Michel, and she's determined to do whatever it takes to ensure the vineyard survives the war, including keeping as much wine as possible from the Germans. However, as Nazi power and influence in the region continues to grow, Céline's Jewish heritage puts her in danger, and her priorities begin to shift as she faces the threat of deportation or worse.

Despite being in the same place, the two women are worlds apart, and as the war continues, their differences become even more distinct as they each begin to make choices that they would never have made in peacetime. Inés chooses to escape the countryside and seeks out companionship, putting her in a complicated relationship with a Nazi sympathizer, while Céline grows closer to Michel, the one person who seems to care about the plight of the Jews and who would do anything to resist the Germans. Both women make bad decisions that lead to terrible consequences, and it's interesting to consider whether these choices would've produced such dramatic outcomes if they hadn't been made during the war. Nonetheless, the paths that Inés and Céline have chosen finally intersect on one tragic night when the fragile worlds they've built are shattered and their lives irrevocably changed.

In the present day, Liv is slowly learning about her grandmother's past, a past that she's never spoken about. As Liv and Edith spend more time in Reims and eventually visit the Maison Chauveau, it becomes clear that Edith's story is inextricably intertwined with those of Inés and Céline, and others who resisted the Nazis more than 70 years before. It also becomes obvious that Edith is seeking redemption for her role in the story, hoping to share the truth of what happened before her time runs out. Most readers will easily put together the pieces of the plot, past and present, by the end, but there is one final twist that may come as a surprise.

The novel has a fairly predictable story, but it shares the lesser-known tale of the French winemakers and their role in fighting back against the Nazis. Although these specific events are fictional, Harmel is able to bring life to the landscape and the people of the Champagne region of France through her intricate descriptions of winemaking and her vivid depictions of the vineyards and the wine cellars. The stories of Inés and Céline convey the fear, the horror and the bleak realities of surviving during war, and serve as a dark reminder of how one choice can have a wide and terrible impact. Liv's story, on the other hand, demonstrates that it's never too late to seek forgiveness and to shed light on the truth. The Winemaker's Wife is another entry into the large swath of WWII fiction, but its opulent setting and its unique history help it stand out as a must-read.

Reviewed by Jordan Lynch

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in September 2019, and has been updated for the March 2020 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Winemaker's Wife, try these:

  • The Forest of Vanishing Stars jacket

    The Forest of Vanishing Stars

    by Kristin Harmel

    Published 2022

    About This book

    More by this author

    The New York Times bestselling author of the "heart-stopping tale of survival and heroism" (People) The Book of Lost Names returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis—until a secret from her past threatens everything.

  • The Book of Lost Names jacket

    The Book of Lost Names

    by Kristin Harmel

    Published 2021

    About This book

    More by this author

    Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this unforgettable historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the "epic and heart-wrenching World War II tale" (Alyson Noel, #1 New York Times bestselling author) The Winemaker's ...

We have 8 read-alikes for The Winemaker's Wife, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Kristin Harmel
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.