Into the Fragile Dark: A Novel

Every love story has its season.

In this sweeping debut novel, the possibility of new love forces one woman to confront the tragedies—and hidden secrets—that are buried on her family’s beloved apple orchard.

Vivienne Clairmont has been shaped by her family’s orchard: the sweet scent of apples, the lush wildflowers, the humming beehives… and the graves of her mother, her childhood sweetheart, and her son, reminding her that love has always gone hand in hand with tragedy in her life. So when she learns that the land might be in jeopardy, she can't bear the blow of another loss. Her husband, Russell, wants to sell, but Vivienne is desperate both to keep her home and to prevent anyone from discovering the secrets literally buried there.

When a young man named Ethan turns up looking for work and promises to help Vivienne save the orchard, she is instinctively drawn to him, not least because he reminds her of Arno, the boy who taught her what it meant to fall in love, deep love; the same boy who died two decades before, when they were teenagers. As Ethan ignites a spark in her that she hasn't felt since Arno, Vivienne knows that any kind of future together means she will finally have to deal with her crumbling marriage to Russell, and face what really happened the summer she was seventeen.

Weaving together past and present, Into the Fragile Dark is a novel of passion and desire, atmosphere and mystery, reminding us that even at our most broken, love has the power to heal.