The Lost Vintage audiobook

“The world needs novels like The Lost Vintage: page-turning tales that remind us both of the power of the human spirit and the mystery of the human heart. The Lost Vintage moves seamlessly between the indignities and horrors of occupied France in the Second World War and the pride and passion of serious winemakers in the present. It’s a remarkable novel.”

4.5 starsThe Lost Vintage is a beautifully crafted tale told in a dual timeline format, and both stories are equally compelling. In the present-day tale, Kate is studying to pass the Master of Wine Examination and travels to her family estate in Burgundy to attempt to master the Burgundian vintages. While there, she uncovers a hidden room filled with World War 2 Resistance pamphlets and a vast amount of valuable wine. Spurred on by her discovery, Kate delves into her family’s past and uncovers a great aunt named Helene. The aunt was expunged from the family history because she had been labeled a collaborator following the war. Kate feels that the details of Helene’s story don’t add up, and she pursues her own investigation.My favorite parts of The Lost Vintage were learning more about both the French Resistance and the way the French dealt with collaborators (particularly women) following the war and the ending of the book. The rush to judgment of alleged collaborators and the way women were treated once denounced as collaborators (with or without evidence) was terrifying and another sad by-product resulting from the horrors of war. Mah’s ending was superb; I do not want to spoil anything so that is all I will say.Listen to my podcast at https://www.thoughtsfromapage.com for fun author interviews. For more book reviews, check out my Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/thoughtsfro....

Favorite Quotes:I have a constant, nagging undertone of paranoia, like the unrelenting throb of a toothache that I am constantly testing with my tongue.… Rose’s tragic death still haunted me. I found myself scrutinizing my thoughts, wary I would discover some ingrained bias, some inherent prejudice, some evidence that I was genetically predisposed to moral weakness. My Review:Written in my favorite dual POV and spanning dual timelines, this engagingly written yet angsty book presented a major challenge. I struggled with the harsh, tense, and oppressive conditions Helene endured before and during WWII, which began long before the German arrived as she suffered a vile and petty stepmother who was prone to selfish behaviors and duplicity. I equally resented her weak father and his neglect in turning a blind eye. I ground my teeth and seethed and then the German's arrived and the tension continued to steadily ratchet up the scale, and I began to bite my cuticles. Despite constant and steady efforts, my perusal seemed to advance in tiny increments. My reading appeared to be markedly slower than usual as I often needed to pause and look up unfamiliar French words or Google several delectable sounding and savory tidbits which threatened to derail my dieting efforts. And that is not to mention the wine – oh, the wine! I quickly fell into Ms. Mah’s vortex, her emotive and insightfully observant writing sucked me right in and bedeviled me thereafter. Her alternating storylines were slowly paced, taut with anxiety, and fraught with peril. Both storylines were sweeping and epically pieced together while the writing was lushly descriptive, highly evocative, and heart-squeezing. In addition to Helene’s WWII experiences, an equally compelling tale was also unraveling in the present-day timeline for Helene’s great-niece, who seemed to have the erroneous impression in her understanding of family history. Poor Helene, she seemed to have been given the wrong end of the stick in both periods.

A solid 5 ☆ and one of the best novels I’ve read this year! ❤️The Lost Vintage has two stories alternating from past to present. The past is a compelling story of the life Hélène lived during the Nazi occupation in France. Is truly gripping + heartbreaking. Fast forward to present. Kate has failed the Master of Wine Examination twice and after losing her job she visits her family’s ancestral vineyard in Burgundy. While cleaning out the cellar with her cousin, she finds a hidden room with priceless vintage wine, Resistance pamphlets and journals of a young girl written during WWll. Kate’s curiosity gets the best of her to find out “why” this room was hidden, “who” was behind it, and “what” happened to the valuable non-existent wine (mentioned in the diary) the Vineyard produced before the Nazi occupation.She finds clues leading her to believe the family had a dark history and shameful past during the war. The BIG question in Kate’s mind.. were her family truly collaborators or part of the resistance in occupied France??! Diary entries appear throughout the book as the story moves back and forth from Occupied France to present day. It’s very unsettling to read the lengths of greed some people did to survive the war by putting others in danger.I found The Lost Vintage mysterious & intriguing, I enjoyed the beautiful love story mixed in making it unputdownable for me. Highly recommending to anyone that reads historical fiction! Or not! Is a great novel for anyone!

Ann Mah is an extraordinary writer, and her new book, The Lost Vintage, is a delicious concoction of mystery, deftly handled family drama, and a fascinating glimpse into the world of wine-making. A vineyard in Burgundy, secrets hidden since World War II, and two perfectly-balanced narratives (one contemporary, one set during the war), make this an unforgettable read. Mah never, ever disappoints - I've loved all of her books, but this might just be my favorite. She's one of the rare writers who can effortlessly switch between fiction and non-fiction.

An enjoyable dual time line historical fiction that takes place during WW2. I absolutely loved the wine theme and the descriptions of the winery in France. It made me want to pack up and move there. I will also mention, that this book goes well with a glass of wine...preferably one from Burgundy!

4,5 stars  First let’s mention the, once again, excellent performance of Saskia Maarleveld. She’s become one of my “go to” narrators especially in historical fiction. The Lost Vintage is an historical fiction built around two female characters and two periods in time: Kate is our modern female character and Helene lived during WWII in Burgundy. We alternate between past and present chapters and both stories were fascinating to follow.  As the synopsis suggests Kate, who lives in San Francisco, goes back to the family vineyard in Beaune situated in the French Burgundy region. She was reluctant to go back to France even if her best friend Heather married her cousin Nico because she had left France many years ago leaving Nico’s best friend, Jean-Luc, heartbroken.But as this is her last chance to study for the Master of Wine Examination, she reluctantly joins the family in France.Heather is overjoyed to have her best friend with her after so many years! Soon enough Kate will help Nico and Heather to sort through decades of hoarding in the cellar. While busy cleaning everything the women will discover a hidden cellar filled with pamphlets from the resistance. A mysterious suitcase with clothes and notebooks will also have them discovering a great half-aunt, Helene Chapin.  This was really like a treasure hunt! I loved that part of the story: the guessing of who Helene was and what happened to her! Kate, Nico and Heather wanted to know more about Helene whom no member of the family had never talked about. Can you imagine in your own family if you discovered such a picture and no family member were willing to talk about it?Moreover, the hidden cellar is filled with rare wines but some priceless bottles seem to be missing and became part of the hunt. If we got one chapter from Kate’s POV it was followed by a chapter from Helen’s POV, plunging us in occupied France at WWII! We soon realize that Kate and Heather have a totally false view of Helen and I really wanted to scream: “No! You have it all backward! Just look. Look!”The hunt was not easy as we got other side characters trying to undermine Kate’s investigation about Helene. What was their motive? Why where they acting so weird? It added spice and mystery to the story! I loved following Kate’s path be it in learning about wine (I learned so many things about it!), uncovering the truth and trying to become a Master at Wine. But the most interesting part of the story was following Helene. We discovered so many unsavory things about the Pétain’s regime! Some had a strong moral compass and did not hesitate to endanger their safety to help refugees. Others led either by greed, either just by the will to survive and feed their family collaborated actively with the Nazis. And all along I was asking myself: would have I been courageous enough? My great grand-father was imprisoned as he refused to help the Germans.Both my grand-fathers resisted and were sent to labor camps. But faced with hunger and fear, would my values, my sense of right and wrong be strong enough?  I hope I’ll never have to answer such questions of course!  This story was enlightening, it was gripping, it was wonderfully narrated too. I decided to give it 4,5 stars instead or 5 stars because the love story felt a little weak and kind of rushed at the end of the story. I would have loved seeing more interaction, more clues that feelings were still running high. Instead it came “out of the blue” in the last 15% of the story. Recommend it? Absolutely! Have you read this book? Or something similar? Any good historical fiction to recommend me?   Thanks for reading! Sophie Find me on:Wordpress: Beware Of The ReaderFacebook: Beware Of The Reader Facebook group : Beware Book Boyfriends Alert Instagram: @bewareofthereader Twitter: @BewareOffReader

I loved this Historical Fiction novel set in Burgundy France. The story is told in past and present day. Kate returns to her family home to study for the Master of Wine examination that she has failed twice. She makes herself useful to her cousin Nico and his wife Heather by helping them prepare the house to be turned into a bed and breakfast. While there, she discovers a secret cave filled with Resistance literature and vintage vine. This leads her on a journey to discovery about her families involvement in World War II. The story switches narrators to Helene - a long lost relative that no one speaks of. Brilliantly and beautifully done. I loved this book.

4.5/5So incredibly good! I was completely transported to France while I was reading The Lost Vintage by Ann Mah.While visiting her family at their vineyard in France, Kate discovers a hidden area in the basement that has been walled-off for decades. Inside, there are countless bottles of expensive and rare wine, an area that looks to have been a safe place for someone to hide out during World War II, and some belongings from a family member that was previously unknown to her. As Kate and her family dig further into what they’ve just found, they are shocked at parts of their own family history. They’re also overjoyed at the prospect of discovering that they own some of the most sought-after wine in the entire world. But why was the wine hidden in a secret cave in the basement?There are two storylines here. In the present day, Kate and her family and friends search feverishly for more information about what they’ve found, and I loved the mystery that came with that search. The more details that were uncovered, the faster I read. Between their quest for information about the secret wine-filled cave area and the search for more information about the person that wrote the journal during the Occupation, I learned some things about the French during World War II that I didn’t know before. (There is plenty of page-time about the Resistance and those who chose to collaborate with the Nazis, and I was able to go online and look up real pictures and details about the events in this story. Just, wow.)The storyline from the 1940’s made the entire story more emotionally intense and robust. Helene-she wrote the journal that I mentioned above-describes her first-hand experiences living during the 1940’s in France. She speaks of tremendous loss, as well as a constant fear and anxiety that her some of her own activities and feelings would be discovered by the enemy.Both storylines are wonderful. I think that each storyline would stand alone very well if it was the only part of the story that was included, so the story is doubly-good since it contains both. I found them both equally engaging and I never felt like I wanted to hurry through one part so I could get to the other. There is the perfect amount of mystery in the present-day with all of the information-seeking. Details about Kate’s own life were also threaded throughout, particularly with regard to her career, and I was invested in whether or not she would achieve her goals within the story.And OH MY GOSH, the author is clearly very familiar with the French setting and wine scene. I could almost taste and smell all of the foods she describes in these pages.The Lost Vintage was fantastic. I enjoyed every single second of this reading experience. I loved learning more about what was happening in this place and time. Historical fiction fans will love this one; particularly, readers that enjoy food and wine stories and those that enjoy World War II stories will probably be as riveted as I was.I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you, William Morrow Books!Find this review and more like it on my blog, Into the Hall of Books!

As a number of my Goodread friends started reviewing this book I have to say that it caught my attention, but still I held back. I, honestly, am not a Francophil or a wine lover--but still there was one Goodread friend after another praising this story. I was intrigued. I also absolutely love historical novels so I bought this book and started reading.I have to admit that I found the very beginning of the story to be slow. Remembering the excitement shared in the reviews I read I pushed on. It was also helpful that the stories in The Lost Vintage are written in the first person. I, as a reader, seem to bond much more easily to the first person in novels. And suddenly, about a 1/4 into this story, I realized I need to know just what happened. I cannot say what happened or why, but knew this story was holding me and wouldn´t let me go until I finished.I realize that I am not a very good reviewer of books--those that I absolutely love or those that I cannot get in to at all. I do not like to write about the stories, afraid that I might say too much and ruin it for others so I will only say that Ann Mah is absolutely brilliant in getting the feelings of Europeans on the second world war, at least from what I am able to observe. I came to Europe as a very young American surprised to hear WWII stories that were still alive in the memory of those I talked to. The hardest part was to see the faces, the tears, the horror. You see, for me, as a young American, this was history-- for them this was something that they and their families lived through, experienced. Even now in 2019 there are people that are still alive that talk about what they lived through as small children, the hunger, the terror that was a normal way of living then, the love of families holding together to do their best. But also of shame in some cases, shame of some of those relatives and who they were. There is one quote in the book that sums it up for me: "But how do you deal with it?" My voice rose. "How can you accept them as your family, and love them, and condemn them at the same time?" "The same way" she replied simply. "By asking questions, and trying to understand their choices. Not in order to excuse them," she added, "but so I could take responsibilty."

I enjoyed this book, an easy read. First off, if you are an avid reader, love wine, and speak French you will love this book. My thoughts were turned to the Diary of Anne Frank in a likeness of the back story from the 1940's, it was set in at the end of each chapter. However I almost feel I would like to learn more about Helene, the ending was well wrapped up, however I did have a few questions left unanswered.

*4.5 stars ✨