Before she became Howard’s wife and mother to their girls, there were the plum orchards. There was Phoebe.

When the letter arrives in the days after her husband’s death, Lenore instantly knows who it is from: Phoebe – her best friend, her first love, the girl who once seemed to hold the upper hand in everything – who she hasn’t seen in almost forty years. Is it an olive branch, or will it reopen old wounds that have taken half a lifetime to heal?

As Lenore wrestles with whether to allow Phoebe back into her life, she reflects on the three great loves who shaped it: first, magnetic Phoebe, in the heady summers they spent together as girls; then, bold, tempestuous artist Greta; and finally, kind, steady academic Howard. Each relationship had its own unique pleasures, risks and sacrifices, and in each Lenore made life-changing choices. What will she choose now?

The Plum Queen is a sweeping novel of love and loss, that confronts the many versions of ourselves that accumulate over a lifetime: the person we could have been, the person we once were, and the person we still might become.

About the author:

Laurel Lathrop is a fiction writer living in Rhode Island with her husband. A California native, she has an MFA from Cornell University and a PhD from Florida State University. This is her first novel.