Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

How have I only just discovered this author? Every book of hers is so different. All brilliant.

'This is a story about Peter Duke who went on to be a famous actor. This is a story about falling in love with Peter Duke who wasn’t famous at all. It’s about falling so wildly in love with him – the way one will at twenty-four – that it felt like jumping off a roof at midnight. There was no way to foresee the mess it would come to in the end. '

I loved the family dynamics, the descriptions of the cherry farm, and that twist at the end! A must read.

From the back

It's spring and Lara's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they've always longed to hear - of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents lead before their children are born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.