I love Nora Roberts books. I first started reading her In Death series, written under the name J.D. Robb, and I loved those books. After I finished with the series, I moved on to other Nora Roberts books. That was about a year ago. Since then, my collection of Nora Roberts books has really grown, but I still have a lot to get. I got my copy of The Villa right after it was released in paperback. It was released in hardback about this time last year, but for some reason, I didn’t get it then.

The Villa is a long, complicated book with several characters and a few subplots. The book is 486 pages long, and a lot of things happen throughout the book. Even without telling everything that happens in the book, it will take a little longer to discuss the plot. This review will be a little longer so I can explain enough about the plot and important characters so that there isn’t any confusion about what I’m talking about. But don’t worry, I’m not going to tell everything that happens, or reveal any spoilers.

Tereza Giambelli runs the winery her grandfather started before she was born. There are branches of Giambelli in California and Venice. The Giambelli wines are well known all around the world. Tereza married Eli MacMillan twenty years before. Eli had his own winery, next to the California branch of Giambelli. Tereza and Eli are involved with both wineries, but they never formally merged the two.

Sophia Giambelli, Tereza’s only grandchild, works for the company in marketing. She was in New York on business when she learned from her mother, Pilar, that Tereza had called a meeting. Sophia stopped at her father’s apartment in San Francisco on the way. Anthony Avano and Pilar had been married for thirty years, but their marriage has been over for years. They have been separated for seven years. Tony has had many affairs over the years. He hasn’t asked for a divorce because he knew it would upset Tereza. He works for Giambelli, and he is afraid that he will loose his job if he and Pilar divorce. Tony’s current mistress, Rene, is pushing him to ask for a divorce. She wants him to marry her.

Donato Giambelli, Tereza’s nephew, is the executive vice president of Giambelli, Vience. He has been completely in charge of the Vience branch of the business for years. He and his family, make the trip to California for Tereza’s meeting. Donato is unhappy about having to go. His family is driving him nuts on the plane. His wife Gina is very loud, and complains a lot. Their three children are little monsters. Gina has plans for their future. She is convinced that Tereza is going to promote Donato. She thinks the fact that they have produced more children than others in the family will make Tereza happy. Gina doesn’t seem to know that she and the children annoy everyone in the family. Donato is not happy with Gina anymore because she has gained weight since they got married. He has a mistress that he would rather be with than going to California.

Tyler MacMillan, Eli’s grandson, is currently running the MacMillan winery. He is dedicated to the winery and keeping it successful. He goes out and works in the vineyard himself everyday. He is unhappy about the summons to Tereza’s meeting, especially since it is in the middle of the day when he could be working the vines, but he agrees to show up for his grandfather and Tereza. He does really love and respect both of them. He just would rather spend his afternoon working in the vineyard.

Tereza and Eli decided that some things need to change for the winery to continue to be successful. Giambelli and MacMillan will be formally merged into one company, Giambelli-MacMillan. The Vience and California branches of the business will no longer be separately run, and a COO, David Cutter, will be in charge of the company. Tyler will continue to oversee MacMillan, but he will have some other responsibilities as well. Sophia is to teach him how to market and sell wine. He is to teach Sophia how to be a winemaker. Tyler and Sophia aren’t too happy about these plans, but they agree since the business is so important to each of them. Pilar is supposed to fill in for Sophia in some of the marketing and sales things since Sophia will be busy learning how to grow the vines and make wine. Donato and Tony will keep their positions with the company, but with some conditions. Gina and Rene weren’t happy about the changes. Rene also pushes Tony into telling Pilar that he wants a divorce.

Sophia and Tyler start to work together the next day, learning new things. They have known each other for years, and they do get along most of the time, but they do have some conflicts to work through. Neither is thrilled with the arrangement, but they are doing their best. Sophia doesn’t like being in the vineyard, working with the vines, but she learns quickly. Even though he isn’t pleased that he has to teach Sophia those things, he doesn’t resent her presence in
the vineyard. None of the other workers in there resent her either. Tyler really hates going to the office with Sophia. Much of that is boring to him, but he does pay attention, and even offers a few suggestions here and there. Kris, a woman in the marketing department, hates Tyler on sight just because of his connection to the family and because he is there. She sees him as a threat to her job because he did make a few suggestions instead of just sitting there with his mouth shut like an idiot.

David Cutter, the newly hired COO of the company, moves to California from New York, where he lived and worked. He used to be a high level executive with another wine company whose main offices are in New York City. He is divorced and has two children. Theodore is sixteen and Madeline is fourteen. Theo had started to get into some trouble in New York, so David decided it was time to get out of the city. He and the kids had grown apart some since the divorce because he had been working so much. David thinks the move will be good for the kids, so he buys a van and drives from New York to California, with two teenagers (he is a very brave man). He really liked Tereza when he met her for the interviews. Pilar is the first person he meets when he arrives, and he is immediately attracted to her. The two eventually start to date. Pilar is very hesitant since it has been so long since she was on a date. David and Pilar’s relationship moves slowly. Theo and Maddy adjust to their new home. Maddy takes an interest in wine making, and eventually makes a suggestion for a new area the company could expand into.

David starts to work. Some employees resent him and don’t trust him because he is an outsider. Tyler and Sophia don’t really trust him at first since they don’t know him, but they change their minds about him once they get to know him. Sophia is happy that her mother is dating David. Tyler doesn’t feel as threatened by having to report to David. Tony and Pilar get their divorce in a short time since neither of them was contesting it. Tony married Rene the day after the divorce was final. A few days later Tony is found murdered. Almost everyone in the family is considered a suspect. Rene blames Pilar, Sophia, and Tereza for Tony’s murder. Sophia is devastated by her father’s death even though their relationship wasn’t the best.

Sophia and Tyler continue to work with each other. They grow even closer, and eventually become involved. Someone who works for Giambelli is found dead, and the death is ruled a murder when it is discovered that the wine was doctored with a drug. Sophia has to deal with the public relations nightmare and some problems related to Kris. Another death is linked to another tainted bottle of Giambelli wine. David discovers some other problems, and soon after, someone tries to kill him. Who murdered Tony? Who was behind the tainted Giambelli wine? Who tried to kill David? What will happen between David and Pilar? What will happen between Sophia and Tyler? Is someone trying to destroy the Giambelli winery? To find out those things, and everything else that happens, you have to read the book.

The Villa is a wonderful, descriptive, well written book. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. I ended up staying up all night to finish it. There is mystery, romance, and suspense in The Villa. This is a long book, so many things happen in it. There are a few subplots in the book too. There are several important characters in The Villa, and each of those characters is well developed. Nora Roberts made those characters come to life for me. Even some of the minor characters, like Gina, were very lifelike. Every time Gina showed up in the book, complaining and making nasty comments to other people, I wanted to reach right in the pages and shake her. She was such an annoying, nasty person. I can see why no one in the family was ever happy to see her.

The mystery in The Villa deals with who murdered Tony, who killed the other employee of Giambelli, who tried to kill David, who was embezzling from the company, and who, if anyone, was out to destroy the company. All of these things may be connected, or they might be just random events. I found these areas of the book to be very suspenseful, and they kept me turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next. The book did keep me guessing throughout it.

There are a few violent acts in the book. Some of them, like Tony’s murder, aren’t described as they happen, and others are. There are descriptions when Tony’s body is found, and some other violence is described. Those descriptions weren’t graphic, but they may be to explicit for some people. Several characters swear in The Villa. Some even use the word that rhymes with luck, but that word doesn’t show up as often here as in other books. I didn’t think the swearing was excessive, but some people may not agree with me. If you find swearing in books offensive, this may not be the book for you.

There are actually two romances in The Villa. One is between Sophia and Tyler. The other is between David and Pilar. Sophia and Tyler are close to the same age, and have known each other for years. They realize they have stronger feelings for each other once they have to spend so much time together working. Tyler doesn’t want to get involved at first, but he changes his mind. After that, their relationship moves along a bit faster. He and Sophia do still have some disagreements, but they work through them.

David and Pilar are also close to the same age, but Pilar is five years older than David. Both of them are in their forties. It isn’t that often that both people involved in a romantic relationship will be in their forties. It is even rarer for the woman to be older than the man. It is more common to see a man involved with someone young enough to be his daughter or granddaughter. Rene, Tony’s second wife, was twenty seven years younger than him, and only a few years older than Sophia. I thought it was nice to see a romantic relationship between a mature couple, and one where the woman was a few years older. David didn’t care in the least about the age difference, but Pilar was concerned about it for a while. She also worried some about getting involved in an intimate relationship because her body wasn’t perfect. I thought that was very believable. Pilar does talk over her fears about starting a relationship with her best friend, Helen. That discussion, and a few others in the book, are rather frank, but I didn’t think they were offensive. I also liked the fact that there were two relationships developed in the book.

Since there are two romances in The Villa, there are some sexual situations and encounters described in the book for each romance. There aren’t of lot of those scenes in the book, but they do show up. The scenes are descriptive, but they aren’t as explicit as similar scenes in other books. I didn’t think these scenes were offensive in any way, but I know some people probably won’t agree with me on that. People who don’t like to read about these types of things, or who find them offensive shouldn’t read this book. If you have read other Nora Roberts books and didn’t have a problem with the love scenes in those books, you probably won’t have a problem with those scenes in The Villa. The love scenes are written in the same way as they have been in other Nora Roberts books. In my opinion, the two romances aren’t the main focus of the book, but they are major subplots.

I thought that the parts of the book dealing with the winery were very interesting. I know next to nothing about how wine is made. All I know is that it is made from grapes, and it is usually aged for a while before it is sold. In The Villa, Nora Roberts provides all kinds of details related to wine making. Many things related to the process are explained in the book. Tyler shows Sophia how they cut back the vines. Once Maddy shows up, she is very interested in how wine is made, and she is always asking questions. Tyler patiently explained many things to her, which also served to explain more about wine making to the readers. At one point, where there is a danger of frost, sprinklers are turned on in the vineyard. The water will freeze on the vines, providing protection from the frost. I had no idea that was done before. Little details like that help make The Villa so good and believable.

Nora Roberts also writes a futuristic series, the In Death series, as J.D. Robb. I love that series, and I have loved the other books by Nora Roberts that I have read. She has fast become one of my favorite authors and I have many of her books now. I quickly became addicted to her books. The books written as Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb are very similar, so if you like books by one, you should like books by the other. She always writes very detailed, descriptive, well written books, no matter what name she is using. The only main difference between the books is that the in Death series is set in the future, and there are several returning characters in each book. In the In Death books, the readers get to see two very different people, Eve and Roarke, meet, fall in love, get married, and adjust to married life over the course of the books. I really like that aspect of the series. In her other books, the relationships don’t go that far since the characters don’t keep returning in several books. She has written some series that have returning characters, but in each book of the series, the main characters are a different couple, and the couple from the previous book are only minor characters in the new book. Anyone that has read and enjoyed other books by Nora Roberts or J.D. Robb should also enjoy The Villa.

Most of the book takes place in California at the Giambelli and MacMillan vineyards, but there are other scenes that take place all around the world. Sophia is in New York at the beginning of the book. She and Tyler spend some time in San Francisco. Later in the book, they travel to Europe on company business. David also travels to Europe for company related business at one point in the book. All of the locations are described, but the villa is described with the most detail.

Like I briefly mentioned before, there are several characters in this book. Many of them are important, and some of them are minor characters. All of them are described so that I could easily imagine what they looked like and what they were doing. Some of them weren’t as well developed as others, but they still seemed believable and lifelike to me. I did really like many of the characters in The Villa. There were a few that I didn’t like, but that is because they were unlikeable, annoying characters, like Gina. I’m not going to talk about every single character in the book since there are so many. Also, for some of the characters, I’m only going to mention a few things about them.

CHARACTERS

Tereza Giambelli - She runs the winery her grandfather started in Vience. She is sixty two, but still very involved in the running of the business. She is a strong woman, determined for the winery to remain successful. She loves her daughter and granddaughter. Tereza decides that some things about the business have to change for it to continue to be successful.

Eli MacMillan - He owns MacMillan winery, which is located next to the California branch of the Giambelli winery. He married Tereza twenty years before. He gets along fine with Pilar and Sophia. He is a kind, loving man. He is close to his grandson, Tyler.

Sophia Giambelli - She works in marketing for her family’s business, a winery. She is good at her job, and dedicated to it. She is Tereza’s only grandchild. She is close to her family. She isn’t happy about the new plans her grandmother has, but she goes along with them. She doesn’t have a great relationship with her father. She doesn’t like how he has hurt her mother so many times over the years. She is a hard worker, and willing to do what her grandmother wants. She does get along with Tyler, but they do have some disagreements from time to time. Sophia is a strong, independent woman, but she can be loving.

Tyler MacMillan - He is Eli’s grandson. Tyler is in charge of MacMillan winery. He likes working in the vineyards with the vines. He doesn’t like dealing with people that much. He isn’t unfriendly, but he doesn’t like large social gatherings. He doesn’t like that he has to learn marketing and sales, but he is willing to do it. He is attracted to Sophia, but hesitant to get involved with her for a few reasons. Once they do get involved, he is committed to their relationship.

Pilar Giambelli - She is Tereza’s daughter and Sophia’s mother. She has been married to Tony for thirty years, but the marriage has been over for years. When he finally asks her for a divorce, Pilar is hurt over the official end of her marriage, but she realizes that she doesn’t love him any more. Pilar starts to date again. She is wary of dating and getting involved again, but she does enjoy being with David. She has some issues with her self image. She also has to get past the fact that she is five years older than David. She hasn’t worked in the company before, but she starts to do some things, and finds she is good at them.

David Cutter - He is the new COO of Giambelli-MacMillan. He use to live and work in New York. He is divorced with two teenage children. He is rebuilding his relationship with his children. He gets along with the family. He and Pilar start to date and become involved. He doesn’t care that she is five years older than he is.

Theodore Cutter - Everyone calls him Theo. He is David’s son. Theo is sixteen. He had started to get into some trouble in New York. He wasn’t happy about the move at first, but he adjusts fairly quickly. He is trying to convince David to get him a car. Theo likes Pilar and doesn’t mind that she is dating his father. Theo also has a crush on Sophia.

Madeline Cutter - Everyone calls her Maddy. She is David’s daughter. She is fourteen. She isn’t happy about the move, and seems to take a little longer to adjust than Theo. She is interested in making wine and asks Tyler a million questions every chance she gets. She does like Pilar, but she isn’t happy about her father dating Pilar at first.

Anthony Avano - He is Sophia’s father. He has been married to Pilar for thirty years, but they have been separated for seven. He works for Giambelli, which is one reason why he has never asked for a divorce. He knows Tereza would be upset and he doesn’t want to loose his job with the company. He has had many affairs over the years. His current mistress, Rene, is pushing for him to ask for a divorce. He doesn’t seem to be much of a father to Sophia.

Rene - Anthony’s mistress and then second wife. She is twenty seven years young than him. She isn’t a nice person. She takes every chance she gets to say nasty, hurtful things to Pilar, even after the divorce is final and Anthony has married her. Rene likes expensive things. She worms her way into Giambelli family events and has plans for Tony’s future with the company.

Donato Giambelli - He is Tereza’s nephew. He has been in charge of the Vience branch of Giambelli for several years. He will know how to report to David. He is married to Gina and has three children. The children drive him nuts, and he isn’t happy that Gina has gained weight since they got married.

Gina Giambelli - Donato’s wife. They have three children, and she wants more. She can’t control her children. She nags Donato all the time. She is loud and annoying. She has big dreams for Donato’s future with Giambelli.

Kris - She works with Sophia in the marketing department of Giambelli. Kris is older, and thinks she should be in charge instead of Sophia. Kris is not a nice person. She really resents that Sophia is her boss, and she hates that Tyler is becoming involved in the marketing.

I think I have covered the most important characters, but there are so many in this book, I may have missed a few.

The Villa is a wonderful, complex book. I loved it. Fans of Nora Roberts or J.D. Robb should also enjoy this book.

www.noraroberts.com

Nora Roberts Book Reviews
Dance Upon the Air ~ Heaven & Earth ~ Face the Fire ~ Reflections ~ Dance of Dreams ~ Hidden Star ~ Captive Star ~ Secret Star ~ Night Shift ~ Night Shadow ~ Night Smoke ~ Night Shield ~ Cordina's Crown Jewel ~ Cordina's Royal Family ~ Once More With Feeling ~ Midnight Bayou ~ Three Fates ~ Sweet Revenge ~ Genuine Lies ~ Chesapeake Blue ~ Birthright ~ Engaging the Enemy ~ Remember When ~

In Death Reviews
Seduction in Death ~ Reunion in Death ~ Purity in Death ~ Portrait in Death ~ Imitation in Death ~




Recommended: Yes