In his inimitable style, Chuck Wendig tells a sprawling story of power, obsession, ego, and losing sight of the things that really matter. Think Moby Dick meets Needful Things in an apple orchard.
The story is told from multiple perspectives, each with its own fully-fledged unique voice. One of my favorite things about Wendig’s books is his ability to capture his characters’ voices, and he goes above and beyond here including voices from all walks of life.
One of the things I love about this book is the subtlety behind the emergence of the apples’ influence. It really creeps up on you, and then it’s there, and then it just gets much, much worse. The effects of power and the lengths to which one will go to protect that power is a major theme of this book, and it is terrifying and heartbreaking.
But it’s Chuck Wendig, so you know it’s not all death and destruction and gloom and gore. There are also apples. And Wendig’s trademark well-placed wit and comedic relief.
While the book is long, I never felt like it was dragging, and didn’t find myself flipping ahead to see how many more pages I had to trudge through. Definitely recommend!
Book Summary
It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there.
Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.
Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.
This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?
Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.
But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.
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