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From the internationally bestselling author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, a heartfelt coming-of-age story that is called by authors "a timeless classic...a book you will read and reread."

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"This is the book Jane Hamilton was born to write... [it is] magnificent." - Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth

"Everything you could ask for in a coming-of-age novel-- funny, insightful, observant, saturated with hope and melancholy." - Tom Perotta, author of Little Children and The Leftovers

"Tender, eccentric, wickedly funny and sage...gives full voice to Jane Hamilton´s storytelling gifts." - Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank and Under the Wide and Starry Sky

Mary Frances "Frankie" Lombard is fiercely in love with her family´s sprawling apple orchard and the tangled web of family members who inhabit it. Content to spend her days planning capers with her brother William, competing with her brainy cousin Amanda, and expertly tending the orchard with her father, Frankie desires nothing more than for the rhythm of life to continue undisturbed. But she cannot help being haunted by the historical fact that some family members end up staying on the farm and others must leave. Change is inevitable, and threats of urbanization, disinheritance, and college applications shake the foundation of Frankie´s roots. As Frankie is forced to shed her childhood fantasies and face the possibility of losing the idyllic future she had envisioned for her family, she must decide whether loving something means clinging tightly or letting go. A new classic from the author of Oprah´s Book Club picks A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth.

Includes Reading Group Guide

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"Tender, astute...[Frankie is] expertly rendered...an inquisitive, imperious but loveable girl akin to Harper Lee´s Jean Louise Finch."-New York Times Book Review

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Jane Hamilton´s novels have won literary prizes, been made into films, and become international bestsellers; and two of them, The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, were selections of Oprah´s Book Club. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times; Washington Post; Allure; O, The Oprah Magazine; Elle; and various anthologies. She´s married to an apple farmer and lives in Wisconsin.

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