The Villa - Hardcover

Nora Roberts

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399147128 ISBN 13: 9780399147128

Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2001

Synopsis

The top PR executive for the family winery, Sophia Giambelli finds her life turned upside down by the merger with the MacMillan family's winery, her powerful attraction to professional rival Tyler MacMillan, and acts of sabotage that threaten the family business and members of the family itself. 750,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Nora Roberts is the #1���New York Times-bestselling author of more than 200 novels. She is also the author of the bestselling���In Death���series written under the pen name J.D. Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print.

Reviews

Another novel rich in emotion and rife with conflict from the prolific Roberts (From the Heart; Carolina Moon etc.), this sweeping saga of Northern California wine-making steeps the reader in a heady mix of sex, scandal and the excesses of the supremely wealthy. Sophia Giambelli, sophisticated head of marketing for the family-run Napa Valley winery, is the heiress to the Giambelli empire. She's often compared to her grandmother Tereza, La Signora, who still runs the business. The Giambelli holdings include the 100-year-old Castello di Giambelli in Venice, Italy; Villa Giambelli, operating in the Napa Valley for 64 years; and nearby MacMillan, a 92-year-old firm added to the family holdings when La Signora married Eli MacMillan. The wineries have always operated independently, but now La Signora announces that she wishes to merge all three, occasioning a major restructuring of responsibilities. She orders Sophia to replace Tyler MacMillan, Eli's grandson, and become the wine maker for both families' vineyards. The monosyllabic Tyler will spearhead marketing for the new joint venture. Laying the groundwork for heated fireworks, Sophia and Tyler fight not only each other but also a corporate saboteur who's being fed inside information. Dramatic personal confrontations are exacerbated by La Signora's designation of a new CEO, David Cutter, the only non-Giambelli to hold a position of power. Cutter brings his two teenage children with him to live in the winery guesthouse and immediately falls in love with Sophia's newly divorced mother, Pilar. Other juicy subplots involve manipulative mistresses, dilettante husbands and emotional Italian wives. As usual, Roberts provides plenty of intriguing background information, this time on wine making, and snappy dialogue. (Mar.) Forecast: Villains are easily discerned and susupense is at a minimum in this latest Roberts, but aggressive, savvy female protagonists should prove attractive to readers and enhance word of mouth. Overall, The Villa is vintage Roberts, a grand cru label for the bestseller lists; in expectation, the publisher is planning a first printing of 500,000. Literary Guild main selection; author tour.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Determined that the family legacy of excellent wines will not die when she does, Tereza Giambelli sets her extended family in an uproar when she shuffles the staffing and arranges for her granddaughter Sophia and her step-grandson Tyler McMillan to work together in the business for one year in order to inherit their shares of the company. But displeased as Ty and Sophia are by this arrangement, others are even more upsetAupset enough to kill and destroy in order to get what they want. Working her typical magic, Roberts has penned a fast-paced, clearly plotted story of jealousy, greed, and family discord set in the heart of the Napa Valley, peopled with characters you care about, and well laced with equal helpings of romance and suspense. Roberts (Heart of the Sea) is one of the best known of all romance writers and lives in Keedysville, MD. Fans will be waiting for this one.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Moving at a pace that echoes that of creating wine from the vines up, Roberts' latest ventures further into the realm of mainstream fiction but, fortunately, does not eschew her romance-writing roots. The three generations of Giambelli women are all strong in their own ways. Matriarch Tereza Giambelli is, at age 67, the commanding head of the family winery operations both in Italy and California's Napa Valley. When she and her husband, who owns the MacMillan family winery, decide to merge their operations and restructure the combined venture, all hell breaks loose. Granddaughter Sophia, head of public relations, is forced into working with Tyler MacMillan, who has been in charge of the vineyards, and both have to work together in the other's area of expertise. David Cutter is brought in from a rival winery to run the whole shebang; then Sophia's philandering father is shot, and a company executive is poisoned with Giambelli wine. With the operation imperiled, Sophia's mild-mannered mother shows her inner steel as she enters a relationship with David and his two teenagers. Apparently someone is intent on destroying the Giambelli-MacMillan operation and will stop at nothing to see it brought down. The fun is in the suspense, although Roberts, as usual, shines at portraying relationships, from the romantic to the antagonistic. Diana Tixier Herald
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399147128
• ISBN 13: 9780399147128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 421