Review - Blood, Wine & Chocolate, Julie Thomas

Life growing up in the United Kingdom wasn't a bed of roses for Vinnie Whitney-Ross, what with gangland family connections, childhood friend problems and general law and disorder. Whitney-Ross found himself in the role of sort of reluctant hard-man, but the chance to escape to New Zealand and a life of Wine and Chocolate with his chocolatier wife feels like a chance for him to start again, make good, and live happily ever after.

When BLOOD, WINE & CHOCOLATE starts out in the United Kingdom, in Vinnie's early life, there is a strong sense of the nastiness of life in gangland society. There's a vicious and quite ruthless streak running through all these families, and in particular, Vinnie's childhood friend, that you know is going to mean lifelong problems. So it is that Vinnie's move to New Zealand and a new life is derailed by vengeance. There are interesting contrasts drawn between life, climate and environment which contribute to the starkness of this change. 

After Vinnie's relocation and family reunion, and life starts to settle into a wine and chocolate induced sort of bliss, the revenge aspect becomes increasingly inevitable, and the trail leading to Vinnie so obvious that things start to feel a little less convincing. Certainly the promised blackly funny doesn't really materialise. It's possibly because the inevitability of aspects of the plot, combined with a sort of archness to Vinnie's tone make for something that feels more forced than it needs to. Somehow there's not quite enough surprise, or tension to the threat elements to carry the attempted gallows humour, and make it completely convincing. 

Luckily readers will be able to distract themselves with the sumptuous descriptions of wine and food along the way, and perhaps that's the point. BLOOD, WINE & CHOCOLATE is entertaining, but it's more of a blend than the single varietal that the blurb is telegraphing.