My commitment to reading all Tracy Chevalier's novels has brought to my attention a number of trends and patterns in her writing. His children are neglected, ignored, and seemingly mere bystanders in his escalating war with his wife. Finally, the book settles into a resolution that hopes to assuage Robert's sadness, even if the trees won't.

Started writing short stories in my 20s, then began first novel, The Virgin Blue, during the MA year. Hot-headed Sadie and buttoned-up James are a poor match, and Robert and his sister Martha can only watch helplessly as their parents tear each other apart. A view of the artwork 'You Are Metamorphosing' (1964) as part of the exhibition 'Retrospektive' of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo at Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany.I kept reading and thinking it couldn't possibly get worse between these two, and then something more would pop up as James and Sadie told their story in alternating POVs. Apparently the love of trees is in the Goodenough blood, as Robert eagerly apprentices himself, learning about botany along the way. James and Sadie Goodenough have moved to Northern Ohio to start a new life in the sticky mud of the Black Swamp. The 38-year-old Swiss artist and atheist Christian Meier set the crescent on the peak to start a debate on the meaning of religious symbols - as summit crosses - on mountains. And then there are the giant trees of the west: people looking for new lives where the sky is the limit.

It reminded me most of Emma Donoghue’s Frog Music, which has a similar California frontier setting but more memorable characters. There are few neighbours and the occasional trips into the nearby town for supplies, trade and religious meetings form their only social life.I had studied for a semester in London and thought it was a great place, so came over for fun, expecting to go back to the US after 6 months to get serious. Martha's rape by her own brother and her possible murder of him is given to us as 'he was mean to me' and with three sentences later. James and Sadie Goodenough have settled in the Black Swamp, planting apple trees to claim the land as their own. I have to say that the plot did come together very well in this book so by the end I could appreciate what Chevalier had been building throughout the story. He is the son who will learn, travel, work a variety of jobs, make acquaintances, truly fall in love and in the end, settle in a most unexpected place with his own family.