Sandy M’s review of The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice
Contemporary Romance published by Pamela Dorman Books 2 Jul 13
I’ve taken some time after finishing this book to write my review, because I needed a little bit to think this story over. I enjoyed the book a lot, but I wish I’d made a visit to Luanne Rice’s web site before beginning to read it. There, in a short description of the story, are two words that would have saved me from an ending that threw me for one huge loop.
Julia’s story begins with the devastating loses of her daughter; we’re given a look into this family’s life and the events that lead up to the accident. Five years later after a self-imposed hermit-like existence, she makes a trip to Malibu to house-sit for her aunt and uncle while they travel. The beautiful house she’s always loved sits amid the lemon orchard that holds just as many memories. Talking walks with Bonnie, the family collie, along the familiar path to the ocean, Julia spies the new orchard manager, Roberto, a handsome, soft-spoken Mexican man who would never take his job and life in the United States for granted.
Also sustaining the loss of a child, Roberto still carries guilt since his daughter disappeared while they crossed the border from Mexico into the states. Though he searched for her after his deportation, there was no sign of little Rosa. Living now with the father he idolized as a child, Roberto enjoys his work with the lemons, and the growing relationship with Julia is something he never imagined.
The way we get to know these characters is done not only as they get to know one another, but also through flashbacks of the times that would affect them both before and after their losses. Julia and Jenny were especially close. They both loved the water, swimming in the waves of a coming storm. We watch as a young Roberto is excited when his father is visiting from the US, then his melancholy when his dad must leave again. Though their family was falling apart, Julia is shocked at the results of the police investigation after the accident. Roberto’s story of his and Rosa’s struggle across the American desert to have a better life is harrowing and heartbreaking.
In between all of this, attraction between Roberto and Julia grows. Roberto is aware his father would not approve, believing his son reaching beyond his station; Julia now on a mission to discover what really happened to Rosa. Their loving, when it finally comes, is sweet and life altering. They become partners in more ways than one, fighting together when all seems lost. And then when Roberto’s world is made whole again, the future for him and Julia is in jeopardy.
And this is where those two little words I was not aware of beforehand creep in – love story. Roberto and Julia do fall in love. It’s a wonderful journey with them on the way there. Which is why I’m so very flummoxed when it comes to Julia’s actions at the end of the book. There are so many choices she has at her fingertips. With a little work, yes, but worth the effort. But she makes the one decision I never saw coming. The one I don’t understand. One I really, really dislike. She never thought she’d find love again, especially after such devastation. So why she does this is just…unimaginable. And turns this romance into a love story.
I like these characters a lot. You feel their pain as each life story unfolds, then their happiness as a new life opens up before them. You can hear the ocean in the distance, smell the lemon in the air. Terror is all around when everything is threatened so fast and furiously. Joy abounds when a miracle appears where one couldn’t have been imagined. And then the despair, the feeling of a different kind of loss, surrounds. A sliver of hope is still to be had, right up until the last paragraph. If all of these things hadn’t been brought through as effortlessly and succinctly as they have through Ms. Rice’s writing, my grade would be much lower because of my own loss of hope.
Grade: B-
Summary:
In the five years since Julia last visited her aunt and uncle’s home in Malibu, her life has been turned upside down by her daughter’s death. She expects to find nothing more than peace and solitude as she house-sits with only her dog, Bonnie, for company. But she finds herself drawn to the handsome man who oversees the lemon orchard. Roberto expertly tends the trees, using the money to support his extended Mexican family. What connection could these two people share? The answer comes as Roberto reveals the heartbreaking story of his own loss—a pain Julia knows all too well, but for one striking difference: Roberto’s daughter was lost but never found. And despite the odds he cannot bear to give up hope.
No excerpt available.
