The Orchard

Stepakoff follows Fireworks over Toccoa with another warmhearted love story. Grace Lyndon overcame her humble rural Georgia roots to become a workaholic, globe-trotting success story, dealing in artificial flavors and scents and sparing no time for trivialities like dating. Meanwhile, on a farm in rural Georgia, Dylan Jackson grieves for his dead wife while raising his 10-year old daughter and running an organic apple orchard. When Grace stumbles upon the most delicious apple she's ever tasted, she tracks its source to Dylan's farm with a surefire business plan in mind. But the chemistry they discover doesn't have anything to do with cooking up fake flavors, and they soon come to a classic business-meets-pleasure crossroads. The heavy focus on the leads' competing drives and ambitions lifts this above your standard romance, though readers with an itch for a solid love story won't be disappointed. (July)