The Apple Orchard
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs brings readers into the lush abundance of Sonoma County, in a story of sisters, friendship and the invisible bonds of history that are woven like a spell around us.
Tess Delaney makes a living returning stolen treasures to their rightful owners. She loves illuminating history, filling the spaces in people's hearts with stories of their family legacies.
But Tess's own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, and a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter.
Then Dominic Rossi arrives on the doorstep of the San Francisco shop Tess hopes to buy, and he tells her that the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. Tess 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 hadn't heard of.
Isabel is everything Tess isn't: all softness to Tess's hard angles, warm and nurturing where Tess is tightly wound. But against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, with Isabel and Dominic by her side, 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.
Book one in the Bella Vista series
For fans of Santa Montefiore, Patricia Scanlan and Cathy Kelly.
‘Wiggs tells a layered, powerful story of love, loss, hope and redemption.' – Kirkus, starred review
About the author
Susan Wiggs is the author of many beloved bestsellers, including the popular Lakeshore Chronicles series. She has won many awards for her work, including a RITA from Romance Writers of America. Visit her website at www.SusanWiggs.com.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As Wiggs (Fireside) begins a new series, Magnus Johansen, an elderly orchard owner in Sonoma, California, has a fall, the effects of which cascade through many lives and reveal numerous secrets. Young, driven Tess Delaney never knew her father and rarely sees her traveling mother. While preparing for a potentially life-changing meeting, she receives news that she is to inherit half of a major apple orchard from an unknown grandfather and that she also has a half-sister. The shock triggers a panic attack that sends her to the hospital where she is admonished to make serious lifestyle changes. Complicating matters is that the messenger, Dominic Ross, is a handsome banker and longtime friend of Magnus. When the fiercely independent Tess goes to meet Isabel, her half-sister, she is thrust into a close community of caregivers, beginning with Magnus, whose reputation dates back to his childhood in wartime Denmark. As Isabel and Tess sort through old papers, they discover an intricate web of secrets that not only bind them together but make the new happier Tess realize Magnus has also taken care of her. This is classic Wiggs, with its emphasis on the strength of family and friends, and a landscape integral to the plot.