What do you do when your father can't say the word love, when words like 'I cherish you' ring like a threat and happiness hinges on who has the upper hand? And how does a daughter reconcile with such a father on his deathbed? This could be any family-but when the patriarch is a Dalmatian New Zealander the result can only be explosive.

Nina Nola and her family strike out from the orchards of Henderson to forge a new life on a vineyard in Pukekohe, but instead their story becomes one of crippling silences and possessive love that can only be redeemed by facing their Croatian past with honesty and rewriting their New Zealand lives without fear. The Way to Spell Love is a remarkable and unflinching memoir of an individual and a community.