The House in the Orchard

In Brooks’s underwhelming latest (after The Orphan of Salt Winds), two women learn the secrets of an English country house in two centuries. In 1876, Maude Louise Gower, a 13-year-old orphan, details in a diary the loss of her parents and moving in with Miss Kitty Greenaway, a classical scholar and tutor. At first, Maude is deferential to her older brother, Frank, and insistent that she will not be swayed by Miss Greenaway’s perspectives. Miss Greenaway introduces Maude to opinions supporting women’s equality and suggests that Maude might be more intelligent than her brother, which causes Maude to question Frank’s view that women should not receive higher education. Maude’s diary entries reflect her diverging from Frank’s perspective. In 1945, Peggy, Frank’s widowed daughter-in-law, inherits Maude’s house after her death and considers moving in. Frank tries to convince her to sell the house, warning Peggy that the house is haunted. Peggy finds Maude’s diary and learns about the history of the house and its previous residents. The ending, which turns on old letters, feels abrupt, leaving no sense of resolution, and Brooks neglects to develop the women who interact with Maude in the first section, as well as in the letters and diary entries. This feminist historical misses the mark. (Sept.)