Tracy Chevalier - At the Edge of the Orchard
Chevalier—who grew up in Washington, D.C.—made her name with her second novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, an international bestseller and the basis for a movie. Since then she’s produced several other historical novels, including The Last Runaway, Falling Angels, and The Lady and the Unicorn. In her eighth work of fiction, she again shows her astute psychological and social insight, following the Goodenough family as it sets down roots in the muddy 1830s Midwest and then, in the next generation, seeks its fortune in the California Gold Rush.