This latest book from Tracy Chevalier reminds me why I enjoy reading her books so much. The Edge of the Orchard is set in 1938 in a place called Black Swamp Ohio. The book centers around the lives of the Goodenough family.

The book contains pictures of apple blossom and pine cones under each section heading for the book. The book is split into several sections with some taking the traditional novel format and some in the form of letters. The story originally alternated between the point of view of James and Sadie Goodenough and is later told from the point of view of Robert and Martha Goodenough.

“They were fighting over apples again. He wanted to grow more eaters, to eat; she wanted spitters, to drink. It was an argument rehearsed so often that by now they both played their parts perfectly, their words flowing smooth and monotonous around each other since they had heard them enough times not to have to listen anymore.

What made the fight between sweet and sour different this time was not that James Goodenough was tired; he was always tired. It wore a man down, carving out a life from the Black Swamp. It was not that Sadie Goodenough was hungover, she was often hungover. The difference was that John Chapman had been with them the night before…She was always happier, sassier, and surer of herself after John Chapman visited.”

James and Sadie have been married for twenty years and over time grudges and bitter feuds have developed, often escalating into physical blows to each other. Sadie recalls how James always seemed more interested in her family’s orchard than in her and the only reason she had sex with him in the first place was to get him to pay her some attention instead. Now she often thinks that he has more time for his trees than for her. As for James he thinks about bitter and cruel Sadie becomes after drinking Applejack and how because of that the only time her desires her is when John Chapman is visiting.

They live a hard life in Black Swamp with the ‘skeeters’ in August bringing ‘swamp fever’ and often carrying off one of their children, and with the harsh winters that seem to follow all too soon after. James craves the sweetness of his favourite ‘Golden Pippin’ apples to bring a little pleasure. James rarely cries over the loss of one of his children but often feels he could cry over the loss of a tree.

James’ every waking thought and action is devoted to those apples and ensuring that they are thriving. He also likes to cross-breed the apples to combine the flavours and try to develop something delicious. Sadie resents the time he spends on the apples and wants more of them to be assigned for her to make Applejack which she believes holds of the ‘skeeters’ and the ‘swamp fever.’

“James Goodenough was a sensible man, but apples were his weakness. They had been since he was a child and his mother had given him sweet apples as a special treat. Sweetness was a rare taste, for sugar cost dear; but an apple’s tart sweetness was almost free since apple trees took little work. He recalled with a shudder their first years in the Black Swamp without apples. He hadn’t realised until he had to go without for over three years how large a part apples had played in his life, how he craved them more than whiskey or tobacco or coffee or sex.”

Sadie for her part never wanted to live in the Black Swamp and says it’s the kind of place you just get stuck in the mud and can’t leave. She preferred it in Connecticut even though James’ sister’s in law never really liked her. Sadie feels she should be able to drink as much Applejack as she likes because she feels the planting of the apple trees was what weakened her children and made it easier for the ‘swamp fever’ to kill them and for that she will never stop hating the trees. James often feels that if he and Sadie are at war then she would win because she is far more ruthless and willing to stop at nothing to get what she wants.

“It needled him to think Sadie would try to lay claim to trees in the Orchard when she couldn’t even tell you their history. It was really not that difficult to recall the details of thirty-eight trees. Point at any one of them and James could tell you what year it was planted, from seed or seedling or sapling, or grafted….It was knowledge so basic to James Goodenough that he couldn’t imagine it would not be so to others, and so he was constantly astonished at his family’s ignorance concerning apples. They seemed to think you scattered some seeds and picked the results, with no steps in between, except for Robert. The youngest Goodenough child was always the exception.”

Robert is the one who follows him around and listens carefully to his instructions on how to tend the trees, despite this James finds his constant attention unnerving. His favourite child is his youngest girl, Martha. Martha is shy and quiet and always willing to help people but she is often to meek to stand up for herself and so is pushed around by other family members.

Sadie appears to relish making James mad and actively plots ways to ruin his apple trees and make him mad. I was used to his slaps. Didn’t bother me none. Fighting over apples was jest what we did.

The later parts of the book focus on Robert and the life he has carved out for himself in California working with trees. He is somewhat of a loner until one day a young pregnant woman shows up looking for him.

This book is one of my favourites of the year.

It’s been some time since I last read a Tracy Chevalier novel, but having enjoyed some of her books in the past, I was pleased to have the opportunity to read her latest one, At the Edge of the Orchard.

The story begins in 1838 in the Black Swamp of Ohio, where James and Sadie Goodenough are attempting to make a living from the harsh, inhospitable earth on which they have settled. With the help of their five children, James is working hard to establish an orchard with enough apple trees to satisfy the requirements to legally claim their piece of land. Sadie, who does not share her husband’s ambition, longs to move on and start again somewhere else – somewhere more comfortable and welcoming. Finding solace in the strong cider and applejack produced from the fruits of the orchard, Sadie’s is a miserable existence from which there seems to be no escape.

Time passes and we jump forward to the 1850s where the youngest Goodenough son, Robert, has made his way alone to California. What happened to the rest of the family? Why does Robert never get a reply to the letters he sends home to his brothers and sisters? We’ll have to wait until later in the book for these questions to be answered, but in the meantime we read about Robert’s work with the plant collector William Lobb, gathering seeds and plants to sell to gardeners in England. Having grown up surrounded by trees, this is the sort of job that interests Robert – yet there is still something missing from his life, and when he is finally given a chance of happiness, he will have to decide whether to take it.

I enjoyed At the Edge of the Orchard and found it a surprisingly compelling read. I say ‘surprisingly’ because, despite the title and the picture on the cover, which should have been clues, I wasn’t fully prepared for so much information on trees: in the orchard sections, we learn about different types of apple tree – the qualities of ‘eaters’ versus ‘spitters’; the taste of James’ favourite Golden Pippins; and the methods used to graft one tree onto another – and in the California sections we are given a wealth of information on the giant sequoia trees of Calaveras Grove. I have to admit, although I do appreciate the beauty and importance of trees, I have very little interest in them. I’m impressed that Tracy Chevalier managed to hold my attention from the first page to the last; I was never bored and would never have expected a book about trees to be so engaging!

Of course, this is not just a book about trees – it’s also a book about human beings, following the stories of several very different characters. At first, the Goodenoughs don’t seem to be a very pleasant set of people. James is decent enough, but with a tendency to be violent when things annoy him and a frustrating single-mindedness when it comes to growing and nurturing his precious apple trees. His wife, Sadie, is a deeply unhappy woman but any sympathy I may have had for her was destroyed by her bitter, spiteful nature and needlessly cruel actions. It wasn’t until later in the novel that I found some characters I could like and care about. In fact, a series of letters written by two of these characters broke my heart…the sense of loneliness and desperation they each felt came across so strongly.

The novel is carefully structured, moving backwards and forwards in time to ensure that certain things are kept hidden until it becomes necessary for us to know them. A mixture of styles are used to tell the story too, from the letters I’ve mentioned above to conventional third party narration and several passages narrated by Sadie in a very distinctive voice of her own. Although the story of the Goodenoughs is fictional, we also meet several real historical figures: the legendary Johnny Appleseed is one you may have heard of, but the English tree collector William Lobb was also a real person. There are so many different elements to At the Edge of the Orchard and they all come together to form one fascinating, enjoyable and very moving novel.

I’ve now read four Tracy Chevalier novels and so far they have all been very different, covering such diverse subjects as the Dutch art world (Girl with a Pearl Earring), fossil collecting on the south coast of England (Remarkable Creatures), religious conflict in 16th century France (The Virgin Blue) and now the trees and orchards of 19th century America. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of her books now that I’ve been reminded of them!

Tracy Chevalier is well known for her historical novels, Girl with a Pearl Earring was a best seller and made into an incredibly well known movie too. So you might be expecting something similar, after all many authors churn out novel after novel that are reflections of their best known work.

Not this novelist. This is still historical fiction but set as far from the civilisation of the renaissance as you can imagine. It is more recent times, the mid eighteenth century, but Chevalier is exploring the lives of Americans struggling to eke their existence from the land.

Tom and Sadie Goodenough have moved to tthe Black Swamp with their children and if they can manage to get 50 trees to bear fruit the land is theirs permanently. But they've only got three years left to do it and last year they lost nine trees and two of their children to swamp fever. Sadie is a vivacious flirt turned bitter and drunk, Tom a quiet, determined man who loves his apples more than his children. Their fights are getting meaner until one day something happens to rent the family apart.

The first part of the story is told first from the perspectives of Sadie and Tom. Then in letters from their son Robert, trying to make his fortune panning for gold, before we hear from his perspective directly as he settles into a new role as a tree collector. The settings, though of deep poverty, are richly described and enveloping as the novel examines what family means, the ties that bind and those that don't.

It is compelling, the characters surprise you with their depths and determination and it is also a fascinating portrait of 18c America, from the backwaters to the prairies to cities like San Fransico. Amongst the characters are the forebears of the modern day redneck and businessman alike, I felt I had a little better understanding of why America voted Trump in, but also that if most of them had read this book they would have known that the nostalgia trip was not all it's cracked up to be.

If you enjoyed Barkskins by Annie Proulx or A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale you'll love this.

5 Bites

NB I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review. The BookEaters always write honest reviews

If this isn’t perhaps one of Tracy Chevalier’s better books it’s nonetheless entertaining, historically interesting and pretty compelling. It begins with the Goodenough family who have transplanted themselves to the Black Swamp in Ohio in the hopes of establishing themselves by growing an orchard. But life in the Black Swamp is as difficult as the name suggests and things soon fall apart. One of the sons, Robert, makes his escape and spends the following years criss-crossing the United States trying various schemes but always being drawn back to the trees that were so much part of his childhood. Set between 1838 and 1956, the book provides a snapshot of evolving American life, and the introduction of real historical figures adds to the interest. Where the novel fails is the reliance on rather too many unlikely coincidences, a bit too much melodrama and some rather stereotypical characters, all of which prevents it being quite such an immersive reading experience as some of Chevalier’s novels are. There are also some longueurs with detailed descriptions of tree planting and grafting. However, I did enjoy it on the whole – and learnt a lot about apples in the process.

A long story of nineteenth century America, with apples and a lot of other trees

Tracy Chevalier can always be relied upon to research meticulously in her novels which marry some real historical individuals with a novelist’s fictional creations, and this book, with its focus on the nineteenth century passion for cataloguing, collecting, and replanting botanicals from the New World to the old, is no exception.

Unfortunately, in this one, that research does not quite translate, for this reader, into a seamless, believable story of the fictional lives who are at the centre of this arboreal world

Starting in Ohio, in 1938, the first section covers the destructive marital relationship of James and Sadie Goodenough. James and Sadie, a volatile woman with an addiction to applejack, cider, and indeed whatever she can lay her hands on, have long lost the initial feeling which brought them together. They eke out a harsh living, settling in Black Swamp, trying to secure their ownership of the land by planting a requisite number of trees. James is a quiet, industrious man, who loves his trees, specifically a strain of apple tree brought originally from England by his ancestors, more than he loves his wife. Sexy Sadie loves sex and hooch, but probably hooch a bit more. Children have been born and have died over the years of swamp fever. Of their remaining children, the two youngest, quiet, observant, Robert, like his father, patient and devoted to caring for trees and Martha ‘ a leaf of a girl with thin hair and pinched gray eyes’, are the children who have most promise of integrity and steadiness of character. The chapters in this section alternative between James and Sadie, and in particular, the split between them translated into tree language – James, carefully cultivating traditional, unusual specialised eating apples, valued for taste and sweetness, Sadie, wanting only the ‘spitters’ sour varieties for making cider and, most of all, applejack. Theirs is a horrible, violent marriage, and trying to scratch a subsistence from the land is also violent.

The second section jumps quickly forward in time, a series of letters, sent by Robert, back to the Goodenough homestead, over 16 years, covering his various wanderings in America, before he ends up in California, and his life intersects with that of the real-life plant collector William Lobb, who collected many seeds and saplings which formed part of the prized botanical collections, public and private, of Victorian England.

Section three gives the back story to those letters and follows the events of Robert’s life, over 16 years.

Eventually, the past, from that Ohio start, and the 1856 Californian present will connect up, and missing pieces of a jigsaw will slot into place.

The problem, for me, is firstly, a fairly unremitting harsh darkness. Sure, life was enormously difficult, a physical fight in many ways, and Chevalier certainly makes us appreciate the challenge and the struggle. But, surely, there are also joys, light as well as shade. For the most part we journey in deep shadow. But, more than this, what stopped this delighting me as Chevalier often does, are some fairly crass and clunking coincidences, the feeling of characters being unceremoniously shunted around in order to fulfil plot. Without laying out precise spoilers, I groaned when a couple of wagons, containing 3 major plot driving characters, just happened to fortuitously pass each other at exactly the right moment, in the middle almost of nowhere, so that people from each other’s pasts could meet again. Lacks the sparkle and dapple, not to mention the momentum, of some of her other books

I received this as a digital review version from the publishers, via NetGalley

When I was given this book to read as an ARC by Netgalley and the publisher I had preconceptions. I knew that the author had written Girl With Tho Pearl Earring which had won much acclaim but had felt it wouldn't be my type of author. Still I liked the storyline of Edge of the Orchard so thought I would give it a go.

What can I say, I loved it. I was immediately drawn in to the characters and the Black Swamp, I could see and feel their emotions and then we had Robert's story, a guy who carried pain and homesickness in his heart. And all this to the background of trees the humble Apple and the majestic redwoods.

I was also fascinated that some of the background was in Exeter, my home ground.

So thank you to both Netgalley and the publisher and last but not least the author whose works will now be on my must read list.

I loved this book even more than Girl with a Pearl Earring. The finely drawn characters make you think it's a character driven story until you get to the end and realise the story was amazing too. Shocking in places and laugh out loud in others it is simply wonderful.
I cannot recommend it enough and defy anyone not to love it!
The research Tracy Chevalier lists at the end of the book is daunting but it pays off so well. That is the difference between a good book and an excellent one.

I’ve been reading some good books this year and At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier is no exception, which is no surprise to me as I’ve enjoyed all of her books that I’ve read so far.

This is historical fiction, a mix of fact and fiction. Most of the places are real (and there is a helpful map at the beginning of the book) and some of the characters are historical figures. There is a lot of information about trees – apple trees, redwoods and sequoias, all of which fascinated me (especially the sequoias) and formed integral parts of the book.

It’s the story of the Goodenough family, James and his wife Sadie and their five surviving children. It begins in 1838 in Black Swamp, Ohio where James and Sadie are arguing over apples and practically everything else. James is obsessed with apples and prefers the sweet variety, the eaters , whilst Sadie loves the ‘spitters’, the bitter apples to make cider and even better, applejack. Theirs is a marriage of opposites. They had settled in the only land available – the swamp and had struggled first of all to clear the land and plant the apple seedlings and seed they had brought with them from Connecticut.

Their story alternates between James’ perspective and Sadie’s – their voices clearly distinctive and recognisable. Sadie is bitter and vindictive, picking fights wherever she can and their family life is terrible. James, although he loves his children is unable to show his feelings and Sadie moves between extremes, is unpredictable, at times loving but more often vicious and cruel to them or simply indifferent. She constantly taunts James, and their relationship going from bad to worse. Of all the children Robert is the one who shows an interest in the apple trees.

In the second part of the book the focus is on Robert, the youngest son who leaves Black Swamp after an incident that is only revealed later in the book. He went west, working where he could including a stint as a gold miner in California, until he reached the ocean ending up in San Francisco where he worked for William Lobb (a real historical figure), collecting seeds and seedlings to send to England. His story is told through the unanswered letters he sent to the family over seventeen years.

The characters are wonderful, from the dysfunctional Goodenough family, to Molly, the strong, independent and resourceful woman Robert meets during the time he worked as a gold miner. I also liked Martha, Robert’s younger sister, who shows determination and spirit despite the heart-breaking situations she has to live through.

I loved the settings, and would love to visit places described such as Calaveras Grove and South Grove to see the giant redwoods and sequoias for myself, but I doubt very much that I will ever be able to see them. In the Acknowledgements Tracy Chevalier refers to a place nearer to home that I could visit. It is in Wales – the Charles Ackers Redwood Grove which was planted in 1857 by John Naylor of Leighton Hall.

The one criticism I have is the ending. I came to the last page and thought ‘is that it?’ – I wanted to know more. I hope there will be a sequel.

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for my copy of this book for review.

In 1838, James & Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck in the muddy, stagnant swamps in Northwest Ohio. They have 5 children . They work hard to clear a patch of land and bought saplings of a local man called Jonny Appleseed.

In 1853, Robert the youngest child, is wandering through gold rush California. Haunted by the broken family he has left behind.

This story is a bit depressing at the beginning but I like the history behind this book. You can tell the author has researched the information. All in - a lovely read.

I would like to thank NetGalley, HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and the author Tracy Chevalier for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A gorgeous read from the inimitable Tracy Chevalier. A pleasure to read and a book that already feels like a classic. Highly recommended!

I was kindly sent a copy from the publisher in exchange for my independent honest review. This was my first dip into the work of Tracy Chevalier. The story starts when James and Sadie settle in the Black swamps of Ohio with their family. This is not a happy relationship and it is obvious life has been hard and taken its toll on them. We have alternate viewpoints from both James and Sadie who cannot seem to agree on anything and thus in my opinion are not suitable role models to this very dysfunctional family. Their characters are not very endearing and lack depth. The first quarter if the book was long drawn out, dreary and uninspiring. Sorry, I tried to persevere ,however I did not continue. I understand from other reviews that this is not a huge favourite amongst her followers compared to other titles,therefore I am still happy to try Tracy Chevalier as a new author to me. Unfortunately this wasn't the one for me.

If you like apples this could be the book for you, joking aside though this was a rather bleak book about hard times and as such was not the easiest read.Times were tough back then and throw in a dysfunctional family and you have the feel of the book I'm afraid it doesn't make for easy reading.I can't say I really enjoyed it and need to read some thing lighter next as I did find this hard going.I don't like not being able to give a good review especially when I received an ARC from Netgalley and the publishers but they gave me the ARC for an honest review,and this is my honest opinion

Chevalier is a wonderful auther. Her books use historical facts to build amazing stories and this one is no exception. The story begins in earnest describing life in the Black Swamps of Ohio. The descriptions of the people, the land and the apple trees are so real, as I read I could smell the swamp land and the AppleJack belly fire it causes. Being married to an American I knew bits about Johnny Appleseed and found his involvement so interesting. The added interest of a family nine patch quilt being made of old bits and pieces that could not be wasted, the fact that apple slices were left to dry on it, it went on the bed it really was a working quilt that was fast becoming tattered with so much family love.. The devastation that forces Robert to leave shows the tough life and its possible outcomes. Once Robert leaves the story spreads across the USA at a time when travel was not easy and charlatans plagued the people.
The final part brings everything so beautifully together and culminates with a traditional fairy tale ending that only this author can succeed so well at.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves historical based stories.. I am now on the search to taste the main two named apples so that I can also taste the pineapple after effect. Great book, well written and worth more than five stars.

It is 1838 and the Goodenough family have been working the difficult land at Black Swamp, Ohio for almost a decade. They must create an orchard of fifty trees to stake their claim over their patch. The apple trees they grow are partly ‘spitters’ used for making cider and partly delicious ‘eaters’. James Goodenough is a taciturn man who works hard and loves his trees. His wife Sadie is a raucous drunk who cares only that the spitters can provide her with cider and applejack. Many of their children have died of the swamp fever that comes around each year. Those left are divided in their loyalities between their father and mother, though most of the time there is little love evident from either parent.

Into this dysfunctional household comes occasionally a real historical character, John Chapman, known as Johnny Appleseed. Appleseed sells saplings and seedlings and disagrees with James Goodenough’s ideas on grafting believing it’s interfering with nature. Sadie enjoys his company and the applejack he brings.

The story of this family is told through a variety of voices one of which is the youngest son Robert’s. Robert has left home for unspecified reasons and travels west picking up odd jobs until he meets William Lobb, a seed agent (and another real historical character). Once again trees, this time giant sequoias and redwoods, enter the tale. Robert has a secret which is not revealed until well into the novel and his desertion of home stems from this traumatic incident in his childhood. When this event is finally revealed it is both shocking and inevitable.

The writing is superb, of course, being at times lyrical and at times gritty. The characters are well drawn, particularly James and Sadie, opposites determined to fight to the bitter end, yet sometimes strangely loyal. Information about trees is presented in a fascinating and never stodgy manner and the hardships of the period are shown realistically. A wonderful book.

I enjoy Tracy Chevalier books. They are always well written with intriguing stories - this is no exception. Although the story is quite downbeat it brings out the true spirit of the people of the time. It covers the mid 19th century in the American west. I did not realise when I started reading this book that some of the characters were based on actual people and this added to the story.

This is a really good read. The first phase is very descriptive and evokes realisation of the conditions in the era. The story moves on to describe the improving fortunes of one member of the family and develops this theme. It is really enjoyable and tackles a completely different side of the gold rush era.
Definitely one to recommend.

Apples! Only someone of Tracy Chevalier’s calibre can pick such an ordinary fruit and create the most mesmerising, sweeping novel centred around them.

As a huge fan of her earlier books, particularly Girl with a Blue Earring and The Last Runaway, I was positively giddy to be approved by HarperCollins to review her latest creation, At the Edge of the Orchard. I started reading with a great sense of anticipation.

‘They were fighting over apples again.’

Constant war reigns between James and Sadie Goodenough in Ohio in 1838 and onwards as they struggle to turn the inhospitable and aptly named Black Swamp into a successful apple orchard. To James, son of an eminent apple farmer in Connecticut, apples and their trees are an obsession and are treated with reverential care and none more so than his beloved Golden Pippen, a sweet-tasting ‘eater’.

Meanwhile, his wife Sadie seeks solace from the misery of her life, her losses, in the applejack cider which is made from fresh ‘spitters’ apples.

In the midst of their bitter, self-centred and often violent marriage, ten children are born and many die from the yearly ‘skeeters’ (mosquitoes). Those that survive are more slaves to their parents than children and fend for themselves in the brutal harsh world. It is a gruelling existence which is described in great detail and intensity; I felt as if I suffered with them.

Robert, the youngest son, is striking with his disarming knowing look that unsettles both James and Sadie equally; his quiet diplomacy at times succeeds in calming the household even though he is also interested in the apples. Martha meanwhile is a sickly child, who nevertheless runs the family ‘home’ and she is pithily described by Sadie as:

‘Martha was the runt of the litter, the only weak one left who hadn’t died. She hummed all the time, hymns to block out the sounds of Deaths footstep behind her.’

This example is just one of the variety of brilliant narrative techniques used by Tracy Chevalier in this book. Her skilful entwining of narrative voices creates a fully immersive read and it starts with a close third person (James’s) point of view interwoven with the simpler, colloquial, childlike, even bawdy and misspelt first person voice of Sadie. I felt I was involved in an intimate conversation with her at some stages.

Altogether there are five chapters, each from a different era though some do overlap. One chapter is a masterful collection of Robert’s yearly (unanswered) letters back home following his sudden departure from Black Swamp as a child, describing his intriguing and tough adventures over seventeen years as he heads further west. The mystery as to the cause of his sudden departure is not revealed until much later, however. His life is vividly portrayed as he enters the Gold Rush in California and ultimately ends up working for Willian Lobb, a famous tree collector.

Whilst the first section of the book deals deftly with details of apple grafting, growth, picking, the second section centres around the grand sequoia of California and of Robert’s life with them. The description of the sequoia that Robert first encounters is awe-inspiring and I can visualise the whole scene exactly.


Throughout the book, Tracy Chevalier expertly weaves fact with fiction, including the then recently discovered Calaveras Grove in California. Billie Latham built the infamous stage on the stump of first giant sequoia, named The Discovery Tree, to be cut down at the Grove. As a tree agent, Robert becomes responsible under William Lobb to collect seeds and saplings to send to James Veitch, an English nurseryman for the stately homes in the UK.

The rough pioneering life of California is recreated brilliantly with the raw hard life in San Francisco captured in minute detail whilst evoking the enthralling enticing allure of the wildlife. Robert is forced to forgo his lonely existence when one day a visitor brings the haunted past dramatically back to him.

The characterisation in At the Edge of the Orchard is superb; there is not a single false tone or word. Everyone is realistically portrayed although it is hard to feel empathy for certain characters, especially James and Sadie.

The darkness that is all pervasive in the book would be too much without the glint of light and hope in the form of one critical person. Will she become Robert’s saviour and end the desolation that’s blighted the lives of so many?

I fell head over heels for Tracy Chevalier’s latest novel and was swept away by the story. I’m in awe of the electrifying literary writing which remained powerful throughout. Reading the book I was emotionally overwrought as well intellectually savouring the exquisite recreation of nineteenth century Ohio and California. The ending was a crescendo of sorrows and joy. The best book of 2017 – so far!

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and impartial review. At the Edge of the Orchard is available to purchase although the paperback will be released on 7th February 2017 in the UK and is already for sale in the USA.

Divided into six parts covering the years 1838 to 1856, this was a slow burner for me. On the basis of part 1 - which is told partly in the third person and partly from the point of view of Sadie Goodenough - I wasn’t convinced I was going to like it. I found the relentless and deep-seated conflict between James and Sadie quite unsettling and Sadie’s first person vernacular (shorn of punctuation, particularly apostrophes) difficult to read. However, part 2 which contains the seemingly unanswered letters from their youngest child, Robert, as he travels across America seeking work piqued my interest and by part 3, which covers Robert’s journey in more detail, I was definitely hooked. What came across most strongly from the book was the unremitting toil involved in eking out an existence in the American West at that time and the amazing strength and perseverance of the people who tried to do this.

“We weren’t livin with the land, but alive despite it. Cause it wanted to kill us every chance it got, either the skeeters or the fever or the mud or the damp or the heat or the cold.’

The inclusion of real life characters and events added to its sense of authenticity and I suspect the tragic events that occur at points in the book are an all too accurate reflection of what life was like then. By the end I found myself completely immersed in the story.

This book is absorbing and interesting. It covers a period of history in the USA with some harsh realities. The characters are well-drawn and some of them are horrible but believable. It will make you glad that you are alive now and not then!