The Vineyards of Champagne

The Vineyards of Champagne by Juliette Blackwell   416 pages

If I don’t get my Christmas cookies baked this year (2019), it’s Juliette Blackwell’s fault. She has written another compelling novel that had to be read as opposed to baking.

The story takes place in, and below, in France’s Champagne region. I first learned about the numerous cave systems that run throughout the area when I read Kristin Harmel’s “The Winemaker’s Wife.” Fascinating reading.

This story has one of my favorite storytelling devices: dualing timelines.  The present day starts off in California’s Napa Valley. Recently widowed Rosalyn Acosta, a wine rep for Small Fortune Wines, is begin sent to Reims, France, to call on the smaller growers there in hopes of gaining the rights to represent them in the States. There are only two drawbacks to this assignment. First, Rosalyn doesn’t want to go to France, Paris in particular. It was where she and her late husband, Dash, honeymooned.  Second, Rosalyn abhors champagne.

On the flight to Paris, Rosalyn lives every long-distance flyer’s nightmare. A chatty seatmate in first class.  Turns out that the seatmate, Emma, is also headed to Reims. With her she has letters from Emile Legrand, that date to World War I. The letters are are between Emile and Lucie, a childhood friend,and Doris, Emile’s marraine de guerre, or war godmother. Women who wrote to the soldier’s that didn’t have no one back home. Emma knows that to get the complete story, she must find other letters. Letters that have been sitting in attics, backs of closets, in tiny museums for decades. That is her quest and it’s clear early in the novel, that Emma pretty much well gets what she wants.

As Rosalyn is reluntanctly brought into Emma’s quest, she becomes fascinated with how the people of the Champagne moved into the cave system in order to avoid the German bombs that fell incessantly. They had schools, shops, resturants, everything that was accessible above ground.

So now Rosalyn has two goals while she is there: Land some new accounts and help Emma translate the letters.

I enjoyed reading what life was like in the caves. It sounds rather romantic, but the facts lead to a different conclusion. I really enjoyed this novel and “The Vineyards of Champagne” receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Dollmaker

 The Dollmaker by Nina Allan    416 pages

 Now that it is full-on fall in Missouri, it’s the perfect time to luxuriate in a gothic novel. Nothing said creepy to me like the cover of Nina Allan’s “The Dollmaker.” It’s a story of a dwarf and a woman in a mental institution, both you are avid doll enthusiasts.

I noticed that Allan didn’t use the politically correct term “little person” for Andrew Garvie, which seemed to add to its creepy-factor. Since he was a child, Andrew has been fascinated by dolls. He collects them, he creates them, and he gives them life. He seems to be alone in the world, which adds a deeper element to his connection with the dolls.

One of the things Andrew looks forward to is the monthly arrival of a collector’s magazine. He pours over its pages the moment it arrives. He even reads the personal ads. They are mostly from other collectors wanting to buy or sell a certain type of doll. That is until he comes across the ad from Bramber Winters.

The two begin to correspond and grow closer and closer. It doesn’t even phase Andrew that Bramber has lived most of her life in an institution.

After much correspondence, Andrew decides that the they should meet.  He makes plans, without telling Bramber, to visit her.Andrew goes by train and makes many stops along the way at various musuems in small towns. He also carries with him a book of fairy tales by Ewa Chaplin, also a dollmaker.

Andrew’s travels and letters to Bramber are interspersed with Ewa’s stories. Turns out, Ewa is a real-life figure, but I couldn’t find much about her on the internet. A blurb about Ewa as an Author’s Note could have put it in perspective for me. I don’t understand why the author placed those stories within the novel. It seemed, to me, like a way to ease the eeriness that I felt reading Andrew and Bramber’s letters, but I felt they had no revelance on the story.

Andrew and Bramber’s meeting was not at all what I expected, which is a good thing. I won’t give my impression of the ending as I don’t want to cloud others’ opinions.   “The Dollmaker”  receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.