Reviewed by Priya Mathew for Readers' Favorite

Under The Apple Tree by Kathleen J. Easley opens with Kate Ecklund, recently divorced, buying an old Victorian mansion in the small town of Salmon Falls, Washington, hoping to turn it into a bed and breakfast. As she and her brother Jared start the renovations, they expect dust and broken pipes; what they don’t expect is phantom piano music, unexplained weeping, and a box of half-buried family history that soon draws Kate into the sad, unfinished story of Blossom Thatcher, the house's original owner. Between family secrets, a hidden gold mine, and a man dangerous enough to threaten her safety, Kate finds herself fighting to give Blossom's story the ending it never got.

Under The Apple Tree by Kathleen J. Easley walks a careful line between a present-day renovation and a 1940s romance that unfolds as a secret whispered across the decades. There is a ghost story, a family drama, and a treasure hunt in the storyline, and I appreciated how naturally the clues surfaced through old letters and small-town memories. The pace builds slowly, like weather rolling in over a mountain, and once the storm hits, it hits hard. I did not expect my throat to tighten near the end, but it did. At one point, Easley describes a coincidence in the story as "almost too uncanny to fathom." That line could just as easily describe the whole book, since fate keeps nudging these two timelines together until they finally meet. Kate is an easy character to root for, stubborn and a little dreamy, still finding her feet after her marriage ended. Her brother Jared brings welcome humor to the quieter scenes, Nathan makes a genuinely likable match for Kate, and the small-town cast, with nosy neighbors included, feels real rather than sketched. Blossom, though, is the one who stayed with me. Themes of loneliness, inherited grief, and love that outlasts a lifetime run through both timelines like roots under old floorboards. If you enjoy stories where the past and present sit at the same table, Under The Apple Tree will feel like coming home to a house you didn't know you'd been missing.