At the Edge of the Orchard

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It’s the gutsy female supporting characters who liven up the novel, and I would have liked to hear more of their stories, particularly his mother, Sadie – a conflicted drunk who takes out her frustrations on her husband and children, but has enough self-awareness to feel remorse – and his sister, Martha.

The Black Swamp is a harsh and brutal place to raise a family for any couple, but for the ill-matched James and Sadie is is proving almost impossible. Chevalier ( The Last Runaway, 2013) excels at creating a highly accessible read that takes a surprisingly dark look at the brutal conditions of frontier life. And yet there is, he understands, the sadness of past trauma sunk deep within him that "even the trees could not assuage".To maintain their land and raise their five children, they must tame their patch of land by growing a garden and an orchard of 50 apple trees. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

After a violent tragedy, the book skips forward in years, and follows the young son of the Goodenough family, Robert, who, we quickly learn, left his family behind and hasn't heard from any of them for decades. Life there is harsh, tempered only by the apples they grow for eating and for the cider that dulls their pain.I liked the fact "The Last Runaway" was set in the US (where Tracy originates from) but found it very slight, although I enjoyed the details of quilting. We are though, taken back to Black Swamp and it is eventually revealed why Robert left Ohio and the family's apple farm. The trade fair on photography, photokina, schowcases some 1,000 exhibitors from 40 countries and runs from 20 to 25 September.