Blood Vines

by Erica Spindler

Book Overview

When Alexandra Clarkson starts having terrifying visions, she thinks that her mind is playing tricks on her. But when Alex's mother, Patsy, commits suicide without leaving behind any information, Alex is left to wonder whether she might be haunted by something from a childhood she can't remember. Detective Daniel Reed was the last person to speak to Patsy. What he reveals to Alex is shocking: Twenty-five years earlier, Patsy was married to Harlan...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312363931
• ISBN13: 9780312363932
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.3" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

One of Erica Spindler's Best!

I have read just about everything by this author, and I must say this time she did not dissapoint. It was a great book! I found it hard to put this one down, in fact it was hard to even put it down when it was time to go to bed, so you know that's a good book! Highly recommend reading.

WINE COUNTRY SUSPENSE

Alexandra Owen Clarkson is a lady with no past - or so she thinks. All of a sudden the world starts shifting around her, memories and realities are mixed. Many deaths follow. This takes place up in Sonoma wine country California. Very good book. It is a one-day read.

Awesome!!!!

Just want to stop and say that I was so pleased with Blood Vines. It was magnificent!!! I was mesmerized. I could not put the book down. This is like Erica's older books that were so great!!! She is an awesome writer!!

fabulous romantic suspense

She earns a living as a San Francisco bartender while working on her thesis and insuring her bi-polar mom Patsy stays on her meds. However, one day Alexandra Clarkson finds Patsy dead from an overdose. She notices that her mother was reading about the mummified remains of a baby found in Sonoma Valley and calls Violent Drime Investigator Daniel Reed to learn more as he was the last known person to speak to Patsy before she committed suicide. Daniel tells Alex that they used to play around together when her mother was married to Valley winemaker Harlan Sommer. When Harlan and Patsy's his infant son Dylan disappeared, his brother took over the winery. Alex is stunned as she does not recall ever living in Sonoma; for that matter she does not know who her father is either. Needing to obtain closure Alex moves to Sonoma after the cops identify the corpse as Dylan. However she begins to suffer nightmares that might be repressed memories of cowled figures, a baby screaming, the scent of saddlewood and a sende of being trapped in the caves where the wine is stored. Dan and his stepsister Rachel watch over Alex who obsessively tries to get answers. Witnesses are killed, but when someone close to her is murdered, the cops suspect Alex as does her lover Dan. Readers who like the romantic suspense of Nora Roberts and Karen Robards will thoroughly enjoy Erica Spindler's fabulous thriller. The stars of this solid romantic mystery both seek the truth as to what happened years ago. Additionally, the beleaguered heroine fears she a chip off the maternal block as she feels she must be as crazy as her late mom was; yet she refuses to quit as she displays strength and fortitude with an obsessive need to see the inquiry through to the end. Alex refuses to allow people to run her off so skeletons remain buried as one of them was her baby brother. Harriet Klausner

Erica Spindler at her best.

Alexandra Clarkson is having nightmares again. The images are scary ~ hooded figures, a faceless screaming baby, flickering candles and naked bodies writhing together. She has no idea what the dreams mean. Could it be tied to the work she is doing on her dissertation of religious practices and rituals? But the images were so vibrant, so real. Her booty call, ex-husband, psychologist thinks she could be repressing memories from her past. Memories that should stay buried??? But then tragedy strikes. Alexandra's bio-polar mother Patsy commits suicide. And along with her death, Alex realizes she may never find out the truth about who her father is. While going through her mothers things, she finds an article in the newspaper with the name of a detective and his phone number circled. When she calls the number to find out what her mother was so curious about she was rocked to her core. Detective Daniel Reed is horrified by what he sees. The virtual mummified remains of an infant were uncovered while vineyard workers were removing some old, infested vines. The vineyard belongs to the Sommer family. A family that 25 years ago suffered the loss of their beloved 6 month old son Dylan, believed to have been kidnapped right from his crib while his sisters slept right across the hall. After meeting with Daniel, Alex is more confused than ever. It seems that when she was a young child her mother was married to Harlan Sommer, Dylan was her baby brother, and they all lived at the vineyard together. But after his disappearance the marriage collapsed. Patsy took Alex away, never to return again and at the same time virtually erasing all of Alex's memory of her time there. Upon arriving at the vineyard, Alex is greeted with mixed emotions. While some are so happy to have her back, there are others that are terrified of what she may remember. While Daniel works the police angle of the case, Alex works the personal one. She returns to the vineyard because the memories are most vivid there. But the more she remembers the more she is terrorized. Ominous messages are left for her, including a sacrificed lamb in her bathroom and people she knows and care for start turning up dead. The families of Sonoma County are rich, connected and will stop at pretty much nothing to keep their perfect imagine in tact. But would they go so far as to kill for it? And while both Alex and Daniel are working their respective angles, they're also working each other. There is no denying the attraction between the two of them - it's electric. But what happens when it starts to look like Alex might have something to do with what has been going on and Daniel needs to start playing cop and stop playing lover? The more Alex digs the more disgusted she becomes. She soon wonders if she really wants to find out the truth. Does she really want to know who her father is? Can she believe the truth she hears about her mother? Can she forgive Daniel for treating her like a suspect and open herself up