Beneath the Apple Leaves
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4.2 • 29 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A German immigrant family confronts the harsh realities of Pennsylvania farm life in this sweeping historical novel by the author of Daughter of Australia.
In 1914, Andrew Houghton trades his coal mining job in southwestern Pennsylvania for an apprenticeship on the railroad in Pittsburgh where his uncle Wilhelm works. But a tragic accident leaves him severely injured, shattering his dreams of the future. Wracked with guilt, Wilhelm finally agrees to his wife’s pleas to leave Pittsburgh’s smog behind. With Andrew in tow, they swap their three-story row house for a rough-and-tumble farm.
Life in rural Pennsylvania is not as idyllic as they imagined. The soil is slow to yield and their farmhouse is in disrepair. But there is one piece of beauty in this rugged land. Lily Morton is quick-witted and tough on the outside, but bears her own secret scars inside. Andrew’s bond with her will help steer them through all the challenges to come, even as anti-German sentiment spreads across America with the outbreak of World War I.
Beneath the Apple Leaves is a vivid, deeply moving portrait of family—its hardships, triumphs, and passions—and a powerfully authentic evocation of life on the land and the hearts that sustain it.
“Verna’s language is rich in description, and her writing flows beautifully . . . a wonderful read.” —Historical Novel Society
“Compelling . . . Verna’s skill as a storyteller makes this book a solid and worthwhile read.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Verna's (Daughter of Australia) compelling novel, the once-well-to-do Kiser family tempts fate by relocating to a ramshackle farm in the rural town of Plum, Pa., as World War I commences. After the deaths of his parents, aspiring veterinarian Andrew Houghton moves in with his pregnant aunt, Eveline Kiser, and her husband, Wilhelm, a brakeman who helps Andrew get work on the railroad. Andrew loses his arm on the job, derailing his plans for life; Wilhelm, blaming himself, hastily decides to move his brood out of Pittsburgh to get away from the railroad and to fulfill his wife's longtime wish for country living. Misfortune quickly befalls the family they encounter anti-German sentiment, lose family members, and attempt to farm fallow soil, and financial headaches ensure that Andrew is always in danger of ending up in the coal mines his father made him promise to avoid but miscommunication is the problem at the heart of this novel, a trope that Verna mines very well. To his detriment, prideful Wilhelm keeps his money woes and problems to himself, forcing a wedge between himself and Eveline. Andrew falls for local misfit with a dark backstory Lily Morton, and their romance is often derailed by misunderstandings and false impressions, some of them frustratingly silly. The plot strays dangerously close to melodrama in its climax and resolution, but Verna's skill as a storyteller makes this book a solid and worthwhile read. This review has been updated to list the the correct title of Verna's previous book.
