Some losses we never get over--and when a parent loses a child, the grief becomes all the more profound. In The Lemon Orchard, Luanne Rice explores this experience with creative compassion, telling the story of Julia Hughes, a mother whose 16-year-old daughter, Jenny, dies in a car crash that also claims the life of Julia's husband, a man whom she was in the process of divorcing. Five years after the deaths, Julia, a professor of cultural anthropology at Yale, is still unable to shake the loss. When a beloved aunt and uncle ask her to house sit their Malibu property and lemon orchard, Julia packs up with her dog and heads west.
The natural beauty of the Santa Monica Mountains intensifies Julia's memories of Jenny. When Roberto, the manager of the lemon orchard, takes an interest in Julia--and vice versa--the two bond through their shared pain of losing daughters. In Roberto's case, his daughter was lost and never found during their illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States. Julia and Roberto begin to fall in love, which inspires a renewed sense of purpose in Julia as she becomes determined to find answers about Roberto's daughter.
Alternating points of view lend intimacy to the romantic elements and suspense of the narrative. Rice has written a tender portrait of grief and loss that ultimately becomes a gateway to hope and healing, love and reinvention. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines