Book Club: Beyond the Orchard

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Author: Anna Romer
ISBN: 978-19-251-8442-6
RRP: $29.99

Beyond the Orchard is the third suspenseful offering from Australian Anna Romer, I have read all three and loved them all.

A tale of dark family secrets, buried for decades, and told in multiple time periods this is one that I found very difficult to put down. There are two distinct times, past and present, but we have a couple of different periods within those two times.

Lucy Briar left home years ago and moved to London, running from an awkward situation with an unrequited love. In London she met her fiance and they have mapped out a life together, until Lucy receives a letter from her estranged grandfather asking her to come see him. Eventually she returns home, on her own, hoping to resolve her feelings and find the answers she seeks to childhood questions.

Elements of the story have a very fairy tale type quality, and there are fairy tale references, so the choice of Briar for the family name really struck a chord in that vein for me.

Soon after her arrival home Lucy’s father suffers a fall that sees him hospitalised and her grandfather passes away. She is left reeling and wondering if she will ever get her answers. At her father’s insistence Lucy heads to the historic family guesthouse, Bitterwood Estate, to clear out her grandfathers things before the Estate is sold – and to find the photo album that created the rift between father and son.

Lucy has some traumatic memories of Bitterwood Estate and dreads returning but she knows that to find the answers she seeks she has to go. She’s not sure how she’ll get her answers now that her grandfather isn’t there to hand over whatever it was he had that would explain everything.

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The quest for answers, and the album, seems overwhelming when for every inch of progress there seems to be a bigger setback. Much of the album has been reduced to ashes, and Lucy can’t find anything addressed to her from her grandfather that may hold the answers. The further she gets packing up the house the more information the house releases. The blurb says that the house begins to give up its ghosts, and it certainly does, but these are metaphorical ghosts not paranoramal ones.

Lucy was followed to Bitterwood Estate by Morgan, the man she was running from, who has come to help her get the house in order. His proximity isn’t helping her cold feet, though he certainly helps her make progress in the quest for answers.

Lucy’s father Ron is a writer, he takes fairy tales and twists them, making the villians the heroes and telling the story from a different perspective. He and Lucy are a team, she illustrates for him. There is a little bit of  life experience in Ron’s retellings and none more so than the manuscript he’s just finished, that Lucy starts illustrating while she’s at Bitterwood Estate. Ron’s writing is part of his coping mechanism, he writes to work through the things in life he’s struggling with.

Beyond The Orchard is haunting and suspenseful, and it leaves you guessing. There were many times throughout that I was sure I knew what was going on, only to discover how wrong I was.

A tale of love, loss, betrayal, desire and family secrets this is not to be missed.

Lucy was a beautiful character, haunted by ghosts of her own, and always running away from something. Throughout the story we see her starting to face some of her demons so that she can move forward and stop running.

Yet again Romer has written with great depth and sincerity, a touching novel that brought me to the brink of tears on a number of occasions and one which I hope to read again one day just to see what else I pick up on that I may have missed on the first read.

Beyond the Orchard is book #57 for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2016.

Available now from Simon & Schuster, Angus & Robertson Bookworld, Booktopia and where all good books are sold.

You can find Anna at her Website as well as on Facebook.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster 30 of our lucky Beauty and Lace Club member will be reading Beyond the Orchard so please be aware there may be spoilers in the comments below.

28 thoughts on “Book Club: Beyond the Orchard

  1. Beyond the Orchard is truly and intriguing story. Lucy, coming home for a visit to see her Grandfather, Edwin, after receiving a letter and locket from him. She also has some past demons to deal with before going back to London to marry her fiance. She catches up with her Dad, Ron, who becomes unwell after hearing that Edwin had died, this is also before Lucy has a chance to see him in regards to the letter.
    Ron asks Lucy to go to Edwin’s home, Bitterwood Estate, to search for a family photo album he hopes will answer a lot of questions he has of the past (Ron was estranged from Edwin for many years.
    While at Bitterwood, Lucy uncovers many trouble relationships in Edwin’s past, she has many unsolved memories as does Ron. Now is the time to deal with them all.
    Wow! What a story, and enjoyable, unpredictable tale of the past. Flicking backwood and forward through different years and characters who were involved in Edwin’s life. This captures different personalities, darkness and concerns.
    A book to read and then re-read to ensure you get the true elements of each character and the flow of the story.
    A bit hard to read at times however well worth it.

  2. Ok so I read this twice why because it really took me a lot to get into . While I did enjoy this book I did have trouble following it . In saying that I did pass it on to my mum who is really enjoying it

  3. Thank You Beauty and Lace for letting me review this book. I enjoyed it very much I love family sagas and this book spans from 1900’s to 1990’s and does not disappoint. It is a book that has three generations of the family.

    Lucy Briar 26 is the main character, who is called back from London after five years of living there with her fiance Adam. Her search into her past starts when her grandfather dies. The book holds a lot of intrigue when she finds out about her family’s past. I found the book held many secrets that made it so I could not put it down.

    I love Australian authors and this book did not disappoint. It is well written and kept me turning the pages.

  4. I found Beyond the Orchard to be an enigma and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The book opens in 1931 in Bitterwood, a tragic event has clearly occurred and someone is taking action to cover it up, but what has occurred, and who the characters involved are is not revealed. The story then moves to Melbourne in June of 1993 where we meet Lucy Briar, Lucy has left her fiance Adam in London and returned to Australia after receiving a cryptic note from her grandfather asking her to visit as he has something to explain.

    From the beginning it is clear that there are interesting family dynamics at play as Lucy is loathe to tell her father that she is here to visit her grandfather as she is sure dad will try to stop her from visiting him. We discover that dad writes fractured fairy stories, taking traditional children’s fairy stories and putting some strange twists onto them, Lucy, a talented artist, does the illustrations.

    Other characters come into play Nina the childhood friend who has married Coby, Coby who fell for Lucy when she was younger is the foster son of Morgan an older man that Lucy had a crush on when younger, and appears to be the reason that Lucy fled to London.

    Then before Lucy gets the chance to see her grandfather he dies, and her father requests that Lucy return to Bitterwood to find a photo album.

    But Bitterwood holds many fears for Lucy as a result of something she thought she saw when young. Lucy must conquer her fears and return to Bitterwood to resolve the mystery of the photo album, and what her grandfather wanted to tell her.

    The story itself is captivating, laden with hints and red herrings as to what occurred all those years ago and how it relates to Lucy and her father today and moves between past and present to build the story to it’s conclusion.

    However at times I struggled with the number of dates and timelines I was trying to follow moving from Bitterwood 1931 to Melbourne June 1993 to the Victorian coast 1929 back to Melbourne June 1993 then to Bitterwood May 1993, Victorian Coast 1929, Melbourne June 1993, and then to France in 1917 and back and forth. On a number of occasions I found I had to go back and reread chapters to try to get my head around what period I was reading, and which characters were involved, and how that related to the rest of the story.

    I can honestly say that this is a book that I enjoyed for the quality of the writing and the storyline, while being totally frustrated by the number of different timelines involved.

    Many thanks to Beauty and Lace and Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to read and review this book.

  5. Beyond the Orchard was a novel that focused on the Briar family. The main character Lucy was living in the present (which was 1993) but the book stretches back to scenes at the beginning of the 1900s. The beginning of each chapter or section lets you know where you are (place and year) but I did find this a bit confusing especially in the beginning when I didn’t know the characters yet so I had to kept flicking back and checking if this was before/after prior events. There is also a “non – fiction” story woven in that has connections to the story and this made me stop and think a few times to work out what the story might be telling.

    It is hard to write much without giving away any parts of the story but I will say the story fleshes out well as the book goes on and we learn more about the past. It becomes interesting as the story goes on and certain links become clear. There are also many times when the story seemed to point at a particular thing happening but then it turns out it was something else…not everything is as it appears lets say.

    Beyond the orchard is quite a long read but it is a good one. By the end I was satisfied that I had all the big answers but the ending did leave me a little sad after learning what happened. I think it was the same for Lucy but it also gave her closure which allowed her to move forward with her life.

  6. Beyond the orchard by Anna Romer

    Well well what an amazing and engrossing read!

    This story goes from one chapter to the another telling the 2 stories from different times (one of lucy and 1 of her grandparents) but this was not confusing and only added to the beauty and mysteryof the story! It really lures you in because you just cant wait to read what happens next but in reading the next chapter you get distracted along the way

    The only negative I found was that (and it may just be the copy I got) every second page seemed to be double printed, each word was printed again a few millimeters higher so it appeared the words had a shadow. Made it quite challenging and lengthy to read

    Thankyou beauty and Lace I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cant wait to Read others from Anna Romer

  7. I really enjoyed this book. It was haunting and endearing.
    Lucy is engaged to her Fiancé whom she met in London after leaving Australia rather abruptly. She thought her life was planned but then receives a call from her grandfather to return home.
    She does so but her grandfather passes and leaves Bitterwood estate to his son, Lucys father. As he is in hospital, he asks Lucy to go back to the estate with so many memories to find a photo album.
    This is the start of the hauntingly intriguing story. She uncovers many things about her past and sometimes struggles to work some things out, but her grandfather is not there to answer questions she has. She is determined to find out, and try to make sense and peace with it all.
    It was a pleasure to read and as I read it I thought I had worked parts out only to double question what I had read.

  8. Beyond the orchard is quite good book to read .Lucy Briar 26 is the main character, who is called back from London after five years of living there with her fiance Adam. Her search into her past starts when her grandfather dies. The book holds a lot of intrigue when she finds out about her family’s past. the story seemed to point at a particular thing happening but then it turns out it was something else…not everything is as it appears .
    The tragic events of the past, the heartbreak and fragile nature of love that are built on secrets and betrayals make this book an emotional roller coaster but one I couldn’t put down.

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