Author: Amanda Coplin

Amanda Coplin grew up in Wenatchee, Washington, and turned the orchards and dry interior landscapes of the Pacific Northwest into the setting of her first book. In The Orchardist, William Talmadge is a solitary fruit grower whose ordered life changes when two vulnerable sisters enter his orchard. Hachette’s author biography notes Coplin’s MFA from the University of Minnesota and calls the work her first novel, while Publishers Weekly credits Harper as the publisher and emphasizes the book’s restrained treatment of loss, refuge, and responsibility. Coplin expands the story across decades, allowing the consequences of protection, separation, and grief to alter several lives rather than resolving them in a single dramatic moment. The agricultural setting is central to that method: seasons repeat, trees mature slowly, and patient labor contrasts with choices that cannot be undone. The Orchardist combines historical fiction with a close study of care, asking what one person can offer others when generosity cannot erase the forces that injured them.