5 STARS
The Apple Orchard is a wonderful story. I really liked the characters. It draws you into Tess's life as she discovers another world she doesn't really understand, family.
Tess is a stressed out single women living in San francisco. She is a treasurer hunter. She finds people missing treasures and sells them with her firm's auction house. We meet her returning a treasure to a old lady Annelise that the Germans stole during the occupation of Denmark. Annelise did not want to sell her treasure because she last saw her mother wearing it as the German's took her away. But as Tess was getting the sugar she found some other treasures that Annelise had bought at garage sales over the years.
A banker Dominic Rossi came to her office and told her he was her grandfather's executor. Her grandfather Magnus Johansen is in the hospital in a coma. He planned to leave her half of his estate an apple orchard when he died. The other half is left to her sister.
Tess did not know she had a half sister or a grandfather. The news made her have an attack.
Tess found she had a panic disorder and she needed to change her lifestyle. Dominic flies her to meet her sister at the apple orchard.
Tess discovers about her family's past. Their are surprises that her sister Isabel did not know either. They discover the past their grandfather had during Denmark's occupation. The story unfolds little by little told in flashback to that time.
I wanted to find out all the answers as much as Tess did. Also for Tess and Isabel to work things out for them both. I hope later Isabel gets her own story.
Their is lot of talk of food in the book and the recipes for the dishes they talk about. The recipes are all over the book. I think I like it better when the recipes all are in one location. It kind of broke the story up for me personally. Plus it makes me hungry.
Tess is always in a hurry and slows down a little in the orchard.
Tess and Dominic like each other right away. Dominic has two adorable kids and a ex-wife that wants to get back together with him.
There are a few other things that keep them apart to work through.
I was given this ebook to read in exchange of honest review from Netgalley.
04/30/2013 PUB Harlequin Imprint Harlequin Mira 400 pages SBN9780778314936
Description below taken off of Netgalley.com
"Sometimes you stumble across a treasure when you're looking for something else entirely."
#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs brings readers to the lush abundance of Sonoma county in a novel of sisters, friendship and how memories are woven like a spell around us.
Tess Delaney makes a living restoring stolen treasures to their rightful owners. People like Annelise Winther, who refuses to sell her long-gone mother's beloved necklace-despite Tess's advice. To Annelise, the jewel's value is in its memories.
But Tess's own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. So Tess is shocked when she discovers the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. And that she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel.
The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she's never heard of.
Against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep.
And in a season filled with new experiences, Tess begins to see the truth in something Annelise once told her: if you don't believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you've not made the right kind of memories.
From one of America's most beloved writers, The Apple Orchard is a story of family ties-both old and new-and of the moments that connect our hearts.
No comments:
Post a Comment