The story in FAMILY TREE is unexpected and with every turn of a page Susan Wiggs draws you further into the drama surrounding some of her best characters to date -- and that's saying something. The air of expectation starts right at the beginning of FAMILY TREE. It was a feeling of dread those moments of ah oh. And Wiggs masterfully hooks you. Her use of food was inspirational. The idea that food can be so comforting sent an important message and link to the main character Annie and the genius of Susan Wiggs.
As usual this review will be brief in providing summary information regarding the plot of FAMILY TREE, which is especially important. Susan Wiggs designed an awesome tale in FAMILY TREE and it would be wrong to ruin even one moment of discovery. FAMILY TREE is about making choices as well as learning how to adapt to personal events that color your life.
There is no shortage of genius and wonder and miracle in this story. Love is at the center of Annie's world. She loves people. Her cooking shows that. Sweet maple syrup runs through her veins and even though she left that world behind to follow her dream, the events that bring her back home will ultimately lead her to recognizing her true dream.
Now and then we travel through time with Annie as she struggles to get her life back. In the Now Annie is reflective of her past and working through a myriad of memories, some goods, others not so but still vague. Then takes us all back to times that mattered to Annie and helped form her. Wiggs uses Then as a way to plot the path for a hopefully better ending for Annie.
Annie's Gran's wisdom is peppered throughout the pages in FAMILY TREE as part of Annie's memories. "Don't let the things you have to do take over the things you love to do." So wonderful, real, important and eternally true. Kind of like the story in FAMILY TREE. Crafted with love and intelligence with just the right amount of humor -- angst -- and several dashes of reality. FAMILY TREE surely contains all the key ingredients for a bold, exciting, relevant and timeless novel by one of the masters Susan Wiggs. Wiggs tells Annie's story through her words, feeling and visions. When it comes to food Annie is an artist -- her meals are her artwork -- the ingredients are her inspiration. Welcome to Annie's world definitely worth the price of admission.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a powerful, emotionally complex story of love, loss, the pain of the past—and the promise of the future.
Sometimes the greatest dream starts with the smallest element. A single cell, joining with another. And then dividing. And just like that, the world changes. Annie Harlow knows how lucky she is. The producer of a popular television cooking show, she loves her handsome husband and the beautiful Los Angeles home they share. And now, she’s pregnant with their first child. But in an instant, her life is shattered. And when Annie awakes from a yearlong coma, she discovers that time isn’t the only thing she’s lost.
Grieving and wounded, Annie retreats to her old family home in Switchback, Vermont, a maple farm generations old. There, surrounded by her free-spirited brother, their divorced mother, and four young nieces and nephews, Annie slowly emerges into a world she left behind years ago: the town where she grew up, the people she knew before, the high-school boyfriend turned judge. And with the discovery of a cookbook her grandmother wrote in the distant past, Annie unearths an age-old mystery that might prove the salvation of the family farm.
Family Tree is the story of one woman’s triumph over betrayal, and how she eventually comes to terms with her past. It is the story of joys unrealized and opportunities regained. Complex, clear-eyed and big-hearted, funny, sad, and wise, it is a novel to cherish and to remember.
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