The Orchard of Bitter Fruit

Wrenfield Orchard has produced the finest apples in Kent for two hundred years. The family that owns it has produced something else as well: in every generation, one child goes missing, and one tree bears fruit that no one can explain. Mairead Doyle does not believe in curses. She is an archivist, hired to catalogue a Victorian estate, and she is very good at her job. But the sealed box she finds in the attic is addressed to her — by name, in ink that has faded for a century. The letters inside were written by an eleven-year-old girl who said the trees talked to her. The girl died in 1890. The trees have not stopped. As Mairead reads, the orchard's current owners begin preparing for Apple Day, and Mairead realizes she has been hired not to catalogue the past, but to become part of it. A cozy fantasy and a Victorian historical mystery, for readers of Sarah Perry and The Orphanage by the Lake.