Surrender at Orchard Rest Orchard Rest Historical Southern Fiction Series Book 1 eBook Hope Denney Linda Au Bob Nailor
Download As PDF : Surrender at Orchard Rest Orchard Rest Historical Southern Fiction Series Book 1 eBook Hope Denney Linda Au Bob Nailor 
A Southern Gothic tale of love, loss, and betrayal in the dark days after the Civil War...
Somerset Forrest, a former Civil War nurse, is expected to live up to the legacy of her mother's crumbling society family and restore them to their former prestige, but she yearns for independence. She's never gotten over Eric Rutherford, her first love who disappeared years before in the hills along the Chickamauga. As she struggles to find her place among a family all too adept at keeping secrets and tries to make peace with the past, her fiancé Sawyer Russell reveals a secret that threatens the peace of Century Grove, Alabama.
Joseph Forrest, Somerset's brother, is recovering from a farming accident when Fairlee, his former great love, returns to Century Grove. Joseph wants nothing more than for the two of them to marry, but Fairlee demands change before she can accept his proposal.
And Blanche Forrest, mother to Somerset and Joseph as well as proud mistress of Orchard Rest, struggles to improve her children's lives while coping with a haunting family tragedy.
The sequel, Echoes at Somerset Manor, was released January 2015.
Author's Note This book is first in a serial. There will be occasional cliffhanger endings in this saga of heartbreak and survival in the Reconstruction era South.
Surrender at Orchard Rest Orchard Rest Historical Southern Fiction Series Book 1 eBook Hope Denney Linda Au Bob Nailor
Hope Denney’s debut novel is a well-crafted Southern Gothic, resplendent with the "dark" elements of the genre.The novel’s setting is Orchard Rest Plantation, home to a dysfunctional Alabama family, which after three years of a somewhat successful struggle with the aftermath of the War Between the States and the exigencies of Reconstruction, has begun to implode.
Well-to-do and, by inference, congenial before the War, losses in property, dignity, and blood are unraveling the threads of the family unit, exposing (and exacerbating) a familial divide created by two women, mother and daughter, long before the War began. From all appearances, the relationships between Blanch Marshall Forrest and her mother and their respective first-born sons (both deceased when the story opens) appear inadvertent, but two generations of favoritism, enhanced by death to the point of obsession, is now telling on the surviving children.
The story centers on Somerset Forrest, second-born daughter of Blanch Forrest, and the oldest daughter still residing on the farm. A strong and well-developed character, Somerset, three years after war’s end and six years after he went missing on the Chickamauga, believes she has come to grips with the loss of her true love, Eric Rutherford, and is determined to find happiness with Eric’s cousin, Sawyer Russell. But Eric’s metaphorical ghost haunts their relationship, more the reader realizes as the story progresses, for Sawyer than for the resolute Somerset. Eric died under mysterious circumstances while in a combat situation with Somerset’s two older brothers and Sawyer. Eric’s body was never recovered—a simple fact that has kept Somerset hopeful for six long years he will come limping home.
Key to the mystery of Eric Rutherford’s loss is Blanch and Thomas Forrest’s second son, the handsome and troubled Joseph who is determined to move Orchard Rest forward through hard work and self-denial. Another excellently drawn character (and my personal favorite), Joseph in tandem with his sister Somerset prove the backbone of the Forrest family. Each burdened by wakeful hauntings of lost hopes, their individual weaknesses are countered by complementary strengths that when combined hold the family together.
But the exorcism required to put all their ghosts to rest lies with the disappearance of Eric Rutherford on the Chickamauga in 1863. I would be remiss not to mention that this mystery woven through the story is compelling.
Some historical anachronisms were noted in this story but nothing jarring to the uninitiated eye or detrimental to the quality of the work vis-à-vis the genre. If you like Southern Gothic or a good read in general, you will thoroughly enjoy Surrender at Orchard Rest, and I for one look forward to its sequel.
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Surrender at Orchard Rest Orchard Rest Historical Southern Fiction Series Book 1 eBook Hope Denney Linda Au Bob Nailor Reviews
I don't normally read Southern Historical novels and I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book. Is it Southern Gothic? Historical Romance? I think it's all of it and I have to say, it was a really fantastic read. Quicker than I expected, I got entirely wrapped up in the life of Somerset and her dysfunctional family. These characters are so well drawn out that you emphasize even with the rascals. There were so many twists and turns and I thought the book would go in one direction and then it completely went in another. The novel moves fast, the writing is stellar and it was a real pleasure to read. As soon as I finished, I pulled up the second book in the series to read the sample chapters because I simply didn't want it to end. (and I really wanted to know what happened to certain people) The sequel has the same exact flavor as the first book in the series, so I know I will enjoy it and plan on purchasing it. Well done, Ms. Denney - you have a new fan.
This is a story of a ruined South, and how two families struggled to find a new way of life among the pieces. The characters are complex and real. They struggle to come to terms with the good and evil around them after 4 years of war, and the uncertainty of the years after peace was restored. Now that the country is at peace, they must search for peace for themselves, and reconcile themselves to the life they now live. Some of them will succeed and some will not. I look forward to reading the rest of the series to find out what happens.
This book is told from the perspective of Somerset Forrest, a 23-year-old Alabama belle struggling against her society’s insistence that she is fast becoming an “old maid.” Before the Civil War, Somerset was promised to dashing young Eric Rutherford, but the cruelty of a sniper’s bullet put an end to that dream. After five years of mourning her lost love, Somerset finds love again in the unlikely arms of Sawyer Russell, who happens to be Eric’s cousin. But her scheming mother, Blanche, has other plans for her.
Denney uses Somerset’s voice to full advantage, providing through her eyes a clear view of the struggles many families went through during the painful era of Reconstruction, as well as the sobering plight faced by women at that time. The dramatic juxtaposition of a young woman hauling up seven layers of skirts to muck a stable or feed the chickens is a powerful one.
Denney’s writing is crisp, and layered with nuance. The scenes are set with great attention to detail. I even learned a new word for a horrifying—and, thank the Lord, bygone—piece of women’s underclothing a basque. (Although I’m sure that one could still order one from the far corners of the internet.)
Romance novels can all too often be beset with a duality of evils dull characters, whose motivations only go so far as their next tryst, and a dull-as-a-butter-knife plot, which serves merely as a loose framework to allow for the aforementioned trysts. Happily, Surrender at Orchard Rest is not plagued by either. The Southern belles depicted here are peppery and full of life, intelligent and determined enough to know which societal rules to bend—and which ones to break completely—in the pursuit of true love.
Hope Denney’s debut novel is a well-crafted Southern Gothic, resplendent with the "dark" elements of the genre.
The novel’s setting is Orchard Rest Plantation, home to a dysfunctional Alabama family, which after three years of a somewhat successful struggle with the aftermath of the War Between the States and the exigencies of Reconstruction, has begun to implode.
Well-to-do and, by inference, congenial before the War, losses in property, dignity, and blood are unraveling the threads of the family unit, exposing (and exacerbating) a familial divide created by two women, mother and daughter, long before the War began. From all appearances, the relationships between Blanch Marshall Forrest and her mother and their respective first-born sons (both deceased when the story opens) appear inadvertent, but two generations of favoritism, enhanced by death to the point of obsession, is now telling on the surviving children.
The story centers on Somerset Forrest, second-born daughter of Blanch Forrest, and the oldest daughter still residing on the farm. A strong and well-developed character, Somerset, three years after war’s end and six years after he went missing on the Chickamauga, believes she has come to grips with the loss of her true love, Eric Rutherford, and is determined to find happiness with Eric’s cousin, Sawyer Russell. But Eric’s metaphorical ghost haunts their relationship, more the reader realizes as the story progresses, for Sawyer than for the resolute Somerset. Eric died under mysterious circumstances while in a combat situation with Somerset’s two older brothers and Sawyer. Eric’s body was never recovered—a simple fact that has kept Somerset hopeful for six long years he will come limping home.
Key to the mystery of Eric Rutherford’s loss is Blanch and Thomas Forrest’s second son, the handsome and troubled Joseph who is determined to move Orchard Rest forward through hard work and self-denial. Another excellently drawn character (and my personal favorite), Joseph in tandem with his sister Somerset prove the backbone of the Forrest family. Each burdened by wakeful hauntings of lost hopes, their individual weaknesses are countered by complementary strengths that when combined hold the family together.
But the exorcism required to put all their ghosts to rest lies with the disappearance of Eric Rutherford on the Chickamauga in 1863. I would be remiss not to mention that this mystery woven through the story is compelling.
Some historical anachronisms were noted in this story but nothing jarring to the uninitiated eye or detrimental to the quality of the work vis-à-vis the genre. If you like Southern Gothic or a good read in general, you will thoroughly enjoy Surrender at Orchard Rest, and I for one look forward to its sequel.
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