The OrchardThe Orchard

Publisher Annotation: Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermonts Green Mountains. A renowned translator of Tang dynasty poetry, Hayley walked away from her career and her addict husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild thingsincluding their exuberant Bernese Mountain dog, 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 readerconsiders 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 themmother, daughter, and doguntil the spring day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door and upends Hayley and Friths solitary existence. When tragedy unexpectedly strikes, Frith must come to terms with heartbreak for the very first time. By turns joyful and searing, The Orchard reminds us that, even during the hardest of times, the enduring power of nature, love, and friendship will prevail.