The Far River, by Barbara Wood
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Edelweiss/Ingram Publisher Services.]
I was unable to finish this book due to technical problems relating to hard drive failure and the fact that the book expired. This is not a reflection of any failure on the part of the novelist herself, as this book is about 450 pages long and is a classic example of literary fiction [1] dealing with generations of a dysfunctional family marked by violence and estrangement. Those who want to read a gripping tale about a California winery and its troubled history will find much of interest here, as this is a well-written novel that I simply ran out of time to read and had technical issues far beyond my control, just as I was getting into the swing of things and pondering some of the mysteries that the novelist had presented so far, which was definitely a dysfunctional family.
At least as far as I was able to read the story, there were two parallel plots. One is the story of the last member of a family of vintners who is trying to sell her family winery and make a new start somewhere else beyond the oppressive burden of her past when a dead body is found in the wall of the winery. Obviously, this sparks a great deal of mystery. The parallel plot is the story of a young woman who marries a man and then finds him to be much different than she thought in the midst of the sharing of a family secret that tears two competitive brothers apart, brothers who thought they were cousins. From what I was able to read I have some guesses about where the story is going but I’m not sure what took place in the rest of the pages, only being able to say with confidence that the story was engrossing and well-written, and I certainly would have liked to have been able to finish it.
[1] See, for example:
Edge Induced Cohesion 