King Bloom

About this book

Twenty-six springs after the Grey Fever, the apple valleys of central Washington live because every blossom is pollinated by hand. Hollis Pruitt, twenty, near-sighted and slow, has failed the duster trials twice and never slept a night outside Wenatchee. When fever thins the licensed crews, the Pollen House scrapes together a tail crew of rejects for the high orchards it means to close, led by a sharp-tongued old horticulturist who trusts no one under forty. Hollis takes the last place and leaves home without her mother's blessing. Six weeks of frost nights, weak pollen and stubborn orchard owners lie ahead, and somewhere near the old Canadian line is something everyone believes is extinct. If Hollis can learn to trust the way she sees, she might save the orchards. But what she finds could also make her work unnecessary.