Book Review : 'Gatekeepers of the Grapevine' by Jane Paterson

My Rating

Book Name : Gatekeepers of the Grapevine
Author : Jane Paterson
Genre : Fiction

Acknowledgment : Thank you, Jane Paterson, for sharing the review copy.

Blurb : Set in the gorgeous vineyard valleys of Cape Town, South Africa, GATEKEEPERS OF THE GRAPEVINE follows the lives of three women as they navigate through their friendships and changing fortunes.
Elizabeth and Carolyn both live in the lavish gated community of Vintner’s Estate, but Carolyn is harboring a secret. When Elizabeth stumbles on the truth, she plots to use the information to her advantage unaware that her own life is soon to spiral out of control.
Then when Elizabeth’s sister, Sarah starts a design business, and quickly becomes the darling of Vintner’s Estate, this reversal of fortune threatens Elizabeth’s position with the other women. As Elizabeth battles to regain control, she discovers that her own life has been as much of a lie as Carolyn’s.

Book from My Eyes : So, far most of the books I have read are based on the plot of USA, Europe, UK, India or few Asian countries; Gatekeepers of the Grapevine is the first one based on the plot of South Africa. This is the main reason I was very excited to read the book. Needless to say, I really liked the book.

Thumbs Up:

• The plot of the book revolved mainly around three girls, Elizabeth, self-declared queen of a gated community, Vinter's Estate; Carolyn, another resident of Vinter's Estate and one of the prodigies of Elizabeth; Sarah who happened to be Elizabeth's sister and nothing like her. I loved the way author Jane Paterson has penned their journey, rise, and fall perfectly. 
• The book is written in multiple POV and the trickiest thing about multiple POVs are keeping the consistency of the characters and making them distinct than each other throughout the entire novel. Author has nailed it.
• Each character has been portrayed very perfectly. The snob Elizabeth, vulnerable Carolyn, Classy Genevieve and Julie, Self content Sarah are have carried their character until the end and not even for a single moment the flow of the story lost.
• I didn't read the blurb before reading the novel. So, the secret of Carolyn remained a secret for me until the story revealed itself which was a good treat.

Thumbs Down:

• A very distracting part of the story is sometimes the thoughts of protagonists are written in the first person for example, "But am I possibly being too hard on her? The through quickly fitted through her mind, before she quickly squashed it." her very distracting. While the entire novel is being narrated as the third person, these kinds of things also could have been considered similarly.
• There are few grammatical and punctuation mistakes but those are not major ones.
• I read the blurb while writing the review. My personal opinion is the blurb should have been less revealing of the storyline as it kind of says everything.

Verdict : This is definitely a very good read and must be considered for a lazy afternoon. I promise no one would regret.