Excellent Lombards

Mary Frances "Frankie" Lombard is fiercely in love with her family's sprawling apple orchard and the tangled web of family members who inhabit it. Content to spend her days planning capers with her brother William, competing with her brainy cousin Amanda, and expertly tending the orchard with her father, Frankie desires nothing more than for the rhythm of life to continue undisturbed. However she cannot help but notice that while some family members stay on the farm, others must leave it--and her--behind. Change is inevitable, and threats of urbanization, disinheritance, and her own rites of passage soon shake the foundation of Frankie's roots. Frankie is left struggling to answer questions that have always haunted her, before time catches up to the Lombards. Who will take over the farm for the next generation? What would it mean for her family to abandon its birthright? And does leaving home mean losing a part of yourself?