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The Orchard

A Novel

Part of Vintage Contemporaries

Author Peter Heller
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Large Print (Large Print - Tradepaper)
$20.00 US
Diversified | Random House Large Print
6.08"W x 9.17"H x 0.82"D   | 12 oz | 12 per carton
On sale Dec 02, 2025 | 320 Pages | 9798217287871
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Peter Heller’s masterful coming-of-age tale, the story of a mother and daughter living on a Vermont apple orchard, escaping ghosts of the past.

Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains. A renowned translator of Tang dynasty poetry, Hayley walked away from her career and her addict husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild things—including their exuberant Bernese Mountain dog, Bear. They get by on what little they earn from their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup they make from their maple trees. Frith— precocious, homeschooled, and a voracious reader—considers herself queen of this backwoods paradise. She is too young to understand the pain and regret that have followed her mother here.

Season after season, it is the three of them—mother, daughter, and dog—until the spring day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door and upends Hayley and Frith’s solitary existence. When tragedy unexpectedly strikes, Frith must come to terms with heartbreak for the very first time. By turns joyful and searing, The Orchard reminds us that, even during the hardest of times, the enduring power of nature, love, and friendship will prevail.
“This discreet monument of American literature reaches its point of incandescence.” —Le Point (France)
© John Burcham
PETER HELLER is the best-selling author of The Guide, The River, Celine, The Painter, and The Dog Stars, which has been published in twenty-two languages. Heller is also the author of four nonfiction books, including Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, which was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award. He holds an MFA in poetry and fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and lives in Denver, Colorado. View titles by Peter Heller

About

Peter Heller’s masterful coming-of-age tale, the story of a mother and daughter living on a Vermont apple orchard, escaping ghosts of the past.

Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains. A renowned translator of Tang dynasty poetry, Hayley walked away from her career and her addict husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild things—including their exuberant Bernese Mountain dog, Bear. They get by on what little they earn from their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup they make from their maple trees. Frith— precocious, homeschooled, and a voracious reader—considers herself queen of this backwoods paradise. She is too young to understand the pain and regret that have followed her mother here.

Season after season, it is the three of them—mother, daughter, and dog—until the spring day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door and upends Hayley and Frith’s solitary existence. When tragedy unexpectedly strikes, Frith must come to terms with heartbreak for the very first time. By turns joyful and searing, The Orchard reminds us that, even during the hardest of times, the enduring power of nature, love, and friendship will prevail.

Praise

“This discreet monument of American literature reaches its point of incandescence.” —Le Point (France)

Author

© John Burcham
PETER HELLER is the best-selling author of The Guide, The River, Celine, The Painter, and The Dog Stars, which has been published in twenty-two languages. Heller is also the author of four nonfiction books, including Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, which was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award. He holds an MFA in poetry and fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and lives in Denver, Colorado. View titles by Peter Heller

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