Review: The Inheritance

The Inheritance by JoAnn Ross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.3 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

There would be no dramatic scenes with his three daughters---all now grown women with lives of their own---hovering over his deathbed. 

Famous conflict photographer Jackson Swann is dying from lung cancer. Putting his affairs in order involves a winery in Oregon and three daughters that have never met each other. His eldest daughter Tess, was a childhood actress, pop singer, and now writer; the middle daughter Charlotte is a married southern socialite and interior designer; and his youngest Natalie is a street photographer. Not wanting to confront his daughters, he leaves it to his lawyer Donovan to travel, let the women know of their father's death and try and convince them to meet together at the winery. Jackson's winery manager, Gideon, convinces him to at least record video messages for all three sisters and is left with the task of explaining the winery to them when they arrive, their inheritance. 

With high readability that will pull you into the story, The Inheritance was mostly women's fiction and at turns romance and historical fiction. With a handful of characters to keep track of, the oldest daughter Tess, takes point and we get the most from her point-of-view and as the most bitter towards her father, he divorced her mother when she was a toddler and never had communication with him since, she has the most emotional turmoil to overcome. Even though Tess takes point, Charlotte with her imploding marriage, coming out from underneath her controlling husband, and taking control of her career again, gets enough page time to get to know her. Jackson was still legally married to Charlotte's mother, they had an open marriage, but Charlotte got enough visits from Jackson over the years to love him. Even though she is the youngest, Natalie had the closest relationship with Jackson, he and her mother were in a 28yr relationship. Natalie has visited the winery, had a relationship with her grandmother, and knows about her other two half-sisters; Tess knew about Charlotte but not Natalie and Charlotte knew about neither. 

Oh yes, she thought, Gideon Byrne could well be trouble. 

The first half was heavy on the women's fiction tone, it's gradually paced as we learn about these women and their lives, it was also what I thought worked best. The middle has the reading of the will and the sisters learn that they will inherit an equal part in the winery, along with Gideon, who will have a controlling vote in decisions, but in order to inherit and possibly sell, they must spend a season at the winery. Tess, who knew her father the least, wants nothing to do with the winery but the first half had her softening as she gets to know her sisters, grandmother, and Gideon. I'm not sure all of her complicated emotions and journey to accepting her father's inheritance was fully conveyed, because of amount of character stories being juggled and page count. After the reading of the will, the tone changes from women's fiction to more romance threads being focused on. Tess with Gideon is the most prominent but moves a bit too quickly for romance purists to really sink into and Natalie's childhood love of her father's lawyer Donovan comes to ahead as Donovan seems to have his own complicated feelings for her. The author's romance genre background is evident in these threads but they hit a little too fast and furious in the latter second half (Charlotte even gets her own HEA in the epilogue) to develop much depth. 

“[...] And that was the day I decided to join Maquis. La Resistance.” 

The latter second half also gives us the historical fiction aspect, Tess' grandmother was a teenage girl in WWII France, joined the Maquis (French resistance), and helped hide a downed American pilot who she fell in love with and was the sister's grandfather. I thought this story thread would play a much bigger role in the story and was a little disappointed when it took until around the 70% for it to really make an appearance. As Tess is a writer, she wants to write her grandmother's fascinating story and we get the story with some flashbacks and oral history. It's an intriguing thread to put in and brings an encompassing feel and connection to the sisters, family, and winery but it also felt rushed and shoved in with it coming in so late to the story. 

Overall, there were a lot of characters to juggle in this story but I thought the sisters and secondary characters carried their weight. There were also engaging aspects sprinkled into the plot with Oregon's jory soil, winery and WWII tidbits, that really drew me into the story. The women's fiction beginning was the best flushed out, the romances had the beginning sparks but not enough page time to give depth, and while the historical fiction thread was compelling, it was left too long and felt rushed at the end. I did read this in two days because of how easy it was to sink into and certain aspects of the story will be staying with me for a while.

View all my reviews