The Peach Thief

This shimmering middle-grade debut set in 1850s Lancashire, England, explores longing, belonging, and the courage it takes to find your place—and bloom.

The night that workhouse orphan Scilla Brown dares to climb the Earl of Havermore’s garden wall, she wants only to steal a peach—the best thing she’s ever tasted in her hard, hungry life. But when she’s caught by the earl’s head gardener and mistaken for a boy, she grabs on to something more: a temporary job scrubbing flowerpots. If she can just keep up her deception, she’ll have a soft bed and food beyond her wildest dreams . . . maybe even peaches. She soon falls in with Phin, a garden apprentice who sneaks her into the… Keep Reading