In Ore Pomarii

Tracy Chevalier is a very readable author, her books though are far from lightweight and I like the way she researchers thoroughly in order to introduce real people into her narrative.  These real life characters from recent history, as well as the drafting of stories of documented human, family dramas mean the book you read holds the attention and engages you in something beyond a complete fiction.

I really enjoyed 'Beautiful Creatures' because it told a story based on the life of fossil-hunter Mary Anning of Lyme Regis.  Within the pages the reader learned about some of the fossil remains Mary found and sold. We met the palaeontologists, geologists and unscrupulous fossil dealers and collectors with whom she came into contact as they are woven into the novel.  It was a Winterborne K book group choice and at a later gathering, using shells and fossils I have at home in my collection, I gave a show and tell session to my fellow groupies which was a pleasure for me and enlightened the others.

I won't be able to give a show and tell session for At The Edge of the Orchard because our biologist from history is the botanist William Lobb and I don't have an authentic collection of pine cones.  Lobb was a Cornish plant collector, employed to collect for an Exeter nurseries and was responsible for the commercial introduction to England of the monkey puzzle tree, the Sequoia and the Redwood. I see that he is also responsible for introducing Desfontainia spinosa,  a pretty shrub with holly-like leaves and with small deep orange and yellow trumpet flowers, which Andy Doran persuaded me to plant in the newly-designed garden at Godalming.  

The novels tells the story of the Goodenough family who battle to establish a plantation of 50 trees in order to secure a plot of land in Ohio’s Black Swamp in the mid 1800s.  The pressures of poverty, illness and the grind of working land that was never meant to be farmed are intensified by the simmering hostility between James and Sadie Goodenough.  Really the novel tells the story of Robert, one of the sons of the warring parents who heads west and keeps on running.  But there is a cast of memorable characters the most memorable being some of the feisty women with whom the passive character of Robert comes into contact.

Robert's encounter and employment with William Lobb allow Chevalier to provide the reader with the benefit of her research into the  life of William Lobb and plant collection practices which took place in order to bring exotic species to the British Isles for introduction into prestigious gardens and estates.  

The narrative ducks back and forth between time frames but is always fluent and manages to keep the reader firmly rooted in the moment.  Above all this is a book with a good ending which does justice to the foregoing narrative and this leaves the reader with a feeling of full circle.