THE HOUSE IN THE ORCHARD

A series of tragedies throw a young girl’s life into turmoil.

When Maude Gower dies in 1945, she leaves her estate, Orchard House, to her late nephew’s wife, Peggy, and their son, Laurie. Peggy should be delighted by this windfall, but her father-in-law Frank’s enigmatic misgivings about the dangers of the estate give her pause. Nevertheless, Peggy decides she will spend a night in Orchard House. There, she uncovers Maude’s childhood diaries—which turn out to make up the bulk of the book—and reads about the deaths of Maude’s parents and her subsequent move from London to Orchard House at age 13 in 1876. Maude has been put under the care of the mysterious Kitty Greenaway, or “The Feline,” as she's called by the girl's remaining relatives. As Maude adjusts to her new life in the countryside, she must decide if she’s going to put her faith in Kitty, whom she’s growing to love, or heed her brother’s urgent warnings: “Miss Greenaway is all charm and witchery, but whose judgement do you choose to trust, Maude? The brother whom you’ve known and loved all your life? Or a woman of dubious reputation, with whom you’ve been acquainted for less than a month?” Historically inclined readers will delight in Brooks’ attention to detail as Maude reaches for the cookbooks and thesaurus that would have been present in a Victorian household. But it is Brooks’ exceptional ability to create a wealth of characters who are at once innocent and manipulative, trustworthy and unwholesome, that is most notable.

Readers will scramble to decide whom to trust, as misplaced faith leads to deadly outcomes.