At The Edge Of The Orchard

“With impeccable research and flawless prose, Chevalier perfectly conjures the grandeur of the pristine Wild West . . . and the everyday adventurers—male and female—who were bold enough or foolish enough to be drawn to the unknown. She crafts for us an excellent experience.” —USA Today From internationally bestselling author Tracy Chevalier, author of A Single Thread, comes a riveting drama of a pioneer family on the American frontier 1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck – in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life. 1853: Their youngest child Robert is wandering through Gold Rush California. Restless and haunted by the broken family he left behind, he has made his way alone across the country. In the redwood and giant sequoia groves he finds some solace, collecting seeds for a naturalist who sells plants from the new world to the gardeners of England. But you can run only so far, even in America, and when Robert’s past makes an unexpected appearance he must decide whether to strike out again or stake his own claim to a home at last. Chevalier tells a fierce, beautifully crafted story in At the Edge of the Orchard, her most graceful and richly imagined work yet.

'A wonderful book; rich, evocative, original. I loved it' Joanne Harris

New York Times bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring and At the Edge of the Orchard Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in The Last Runaway, bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement. Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker, moves to Ohio in 1850--only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape. Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality. However, Honor is drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, where she befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.

A new classic from the author of Oprah's Book Club picks A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth. "This is the book Jane Hamilton was born to write... [it is] magnificent." —Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth Mary Frances "Frankie" Lombard is fiercely in love with her family's sprawling apple orchard and the tangled web of family members who inhabit it. Content to spend her days planning capers with her brother William, competing with her brainy cousin Amanda, and expertly tending the orchard with her father, Frankie desires nothing more than for the rhythm of life to continue undisturbed. But she cannot help being haunted by the historical fact that some family members end up staying on the farm and others must leave. Change is inevitable, and threats of urbanization, disinheritance, and college applications shake the foundation of Frankie's roots. As Frankie is forced to shed her childhood fantasies and face the possibility of losing the idyllic future she had envisioned for her family, she must decide whether loving something means clinging tightly or letting go. "Everything you could ask for in a coming-of-age novel-- funny, insightful, observant, saturated with hope and melancholy." —Tom Perotta, author ofLittle Childrenand The Leftovers "Tender, eccentric, wickedly funny and sage...gives full voice to Jane Hamilton's storytelling gifts." - Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank and Under the Wide and Starry Sky

James Goodenough, whose family had originally settled in Connecticut from England brings his family to Ohio to carve out a new life for them in the Black Swamp in 1838. As swamp fever gradually picks off their children and they wrestle daily with survival. This course will see their family engulfed in tragedy and fifteen years later we pick up with their youngest son, Robert who has been running west since the trying to escape his memories of what happened, taking solace in a very different kind of tree--the redwoods and sequoias of California. But Robert's past catches up with him and he's forced to confront what he's running from and work out for himself that you can't run for ever.

"O felt her presence behind him like a fire at his back.” Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat’s son Osei Kokote—“O” for short—knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day, so he is lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one boy, used to holding sway in the world of the school­yard, can’t stand to witness the budding relationship. When Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl, the school and its key players—teachers and pupils alike—will never be the same again. The tragedy of Othello is vividly transposed to a 1970s suburban Washington school, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practice a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers. The world of preadolescents is as passionate and intense, if not more so, as that of adults. Drawing us into the lives and emotions of four eleven-year-olds—Osei, Dee, Ian and his reluctant girlfriend Mimi—Tracy Chevalier’s powerful drama of friends torn apart by love and jealousy, bullying and betrayal, is as moving as it is enthralling. It is an unfor­gettable novel.

In the tradition of life-changing memoirs like Salvation Creek, a food-obsessed former city slicker creates her own slice of heaven in a rambling old country house on the Apple Isle. We've been there and done that with slow cooking gurus, celebrity cooks, master chefs and more than a few tree change books, and there are many pretty lifestyle books and blogs out there, but nothing is as instantly lipsmackingly appealing as Michelle Crawford's personal slice of heaven in Tasmania. Organising cocktail parties at the Opera House and drinking French champagne sounds perfectly glamorous, and for a long time it was for Michelle. But after the birth of her daughter, Elsa, the glamour started to fade and she developed a yearning for country life that could no longer be ignored. She wanted to grow her own food and, even better, learn how to cook it. She dreamed of wearing gum boots every day and creating a country childhood for her daughter - an Enid Blyton childhood filled with outdoor adventures, good things to eat and lashings of ginger beer. Just a glimpse at her hugoandelsa blog shows how she has made that dream a reality and her knack for finding beauty in the simple things of life. She inspires us to think maybe we could conjure some of the daily magic she performs so effortlessly while enjoying her better than good life in a rambling old farmhouse in the Huon Valley in Tasmania. Add glorious colour images and the sorts of recipes that have made Michelle's blog so popular and you have a beautiful colour book to treasure that reminds us all about how seductive a little bit of slow living might be. Thanks to Michelle, you can but dream from the safety of our armchairs- especially about the oodles of homemade cake - but in the meantime her story may help you take some baby steps and be inspired to make your own jam or hot crumpets ... or maybe move to Tasmania.

“Like Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Peter Heller has a rare talent that hooks both literary and commercial readers.” –Elle magazine From the bestselling author of The Dog Stars and The River, The Orchard is an unforgettable coming of age tale reminding us that, even during the hardest of times, love, friendship, and the enduring power of nature will prevail. Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains. One of the world’s most renowned translators of poetry from China’s Tang dynasty, Hayley walked away from her career and her drug-addicted husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild things—including their exuberant Bernese mountain mutt, Bear. They get by on what little they earn from their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup they make from their maple trees. Frith—precocious, homeschooled, and a voracious reader—considers herself queen of this backwoods paradise. She is too young to understand the pain and regret that have followed her mother here. Season after season, it is the three of them—mother, daughter, and dog—until the sunny spring day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door. Rose is an artist and kindred spirit whose unexpected friendship upends Hayley and Frith’s solitary existence. Rosie takes the edge off the worries of day-to-day survival and encourages the playful aspects of living in nature: fishing, picnics, swimming in a quarry. Frith thrives under the loving care of Hayley and Rosie and, with a child’s innocence, assumes their happiness will last forever. Instead, their lives are shattered by unexpected tragedy and Frith must come to terms with heartbreak and fear. Peter Heller is unique in his ability to capture the beauty and nuance of the natural world and its pull on women and men. In The Orchard, he pairs evocative storytelling with jewel-like poems—Hayley’s translations of her most beloved Tang poet, Li Xue—that echo Hayley and Frith’s life in the wilderness and tell their own tale of mother and daughter. By turns joyful and searing, The Orchard examines the fragility of childhood, motherhood, romantic love, and friendship, and celebrates the enduring solace of nature. At a time when so many of us are gripped by fear and uncertainty, Heller’s story is like a calming deep breath.