At the Edge of the Orchard

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Chevalier does not hurry her revelations; the novel is almost halfway through before the buried secrets are even hinted at: “Robert had tried to lead an honest life, even when surrounded by dishonest people, but no matter how cleanly he lived now, he had made one mistake that he could never escape. Little Martha remains in the Black Swamp, and we get a window into her life through her own letters sent over the years in the hope of reaching Robert, whilst she herself painstakingly salts away every dime she can earn to fund her own journey west.

James is stern and quick with his fists, he struggles with his inner thoughts, he knows that he feels affection for his children, especially Robert, but is unable to show kindness or love. When I read the Acknowledgements, I found that Lobb and Veitch are real people and that there are real places and events that took place in California and England. The making of patchwork quilts was a prominent image in The Last Runaway and there is a corresponding echo here; a quilt becomes a repository of memories, made up of scraps of clothing from family members and handed down through the generations. He is the son who will learn, travel, work a variety of jobs, make acquaintances, truly fall in love and in the end, settle in a most unexpected place with his own family.She totally immerses her readers into the time and the places of her stories, and she has done it once again in At The Edge of the Orchard. The entrepreneurial American Pioneer is discovering an income stream amid the country's newly discovered natural magnificence – the groves of wondrous trees are the new cash-cow, now that the Goldrush is running dry, and once again, Chevalier seems to be drawing our eye to the corruption in the original ideals of American progress – the pioneer spirit asserting itself over a natural world that might remain beautiful, if simply left alone. BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

What fascinates me most about Tracy Chevalier and her writing is the fact that in every one of her books I've been introduced to a subject, or a place that I knew nothing about before. Sadie is a drunk who is determined that James will plant more 'spitters' than 'eaters', she longs for the escape that a bottle of applejack brings, and constantly taunts her husband, and is cruel to her children. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.Worn down by grief and hard living, she's become a bitter, backstabbing woman who's more than willing to cut off her nose to spite her face, and destroy everything her husband values.