2020 Book Review #20:The Apple Orchard

What an absolutely delightful story/book!

The author is new to me and I discovered her via my sister Joy.  This book is a little treasure.

It has a bit of drama, mystery, romance (but not sappy!), and family dynamics.  It also has a bit of historical fiction from WWII/Russia/Denmark.  I just loved this book and it's very well written.

STORY SUMMARY

Tess (Theresa) Delaney is single, living in San Francisco and works for an antiques/art center where she works on returning stolen treasures to their rightful owners. She loves the sense of history that comes with her career.

Her own history though has many gaps:  she never knew her father..she doesn't even have a name for him! and her own mother was constantly traveling all over the world for her job in art and never had real time for Tess.  Tess was basically raised by her grandmother "Nana" in Dublin, Ireland.  Nana has been dead for awhile and the only real people in Tess' life are her work colleagues: Nellie, Jude, and Lydia and Lydia's fiance Nathan.  She survives on going out for drinks, drinking lots of coffee and eating fast food.

And then one day Dominic Rossi walks into her life. He actually walks into the shop that she hopes to buy. He is a lawyer from the little village of Archangel and he's there to inform her that the grandfather she never knew existed is in the hospital in a coma.  And she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista which is his 100-acre apple orchard in Sonoma County.  The other half of the will goes to Isabel Johanson.  Isabel is a half-sister whom she didn't know existed!  They discover that they have the same father, Erik, who has been dead for a number of years.

Isabel is the opposite of Tess: gentle, warm, nurutring and a fantastic chef.  But once they meet, they are just like family.....they ARE family. Tess begins to discover a whole new world and what real love is...what familial love is.  She learns about the simple pleasures of good food and the rich earth that grows it.  She learns about the family she never knew existed, and that they come first and also that the roots of history hold secrets that run deep.

MY THOUGHTS

This book is a treasure.  I loved the setting and the character development and the themes of friendship, sisterly love, family connections and the historical aspect of the Faberge egg and the situations in Denmark in the 1940s.  

The book is like a gentle breeze on a hot summer day and I stayed up late each night reading, turning page after page.

In my opnion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.