Waiting on Wednesday: The Springsweet

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine. It highlights pre-release books that we just can’t wait to get our hands on.

The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell
Release date: April 17, 2012
Published by: Harcourt Children’s Books

I’ve been a fan of Saundra Mitchell since I read Shadowed Summer, and though I’m usually not a fan of historical fiction, I thought she did a great job with The Vespertine. And this cover’s totally gorgeous.

From Mitchell’s website:

It’s a long way from Baltimore to Oklahoma Territory. But Zora Stewart will go any distance to put the tragic events of her sixteenth summer behind her. So this city girl heads to the tiny frontier town of West Glory to help her young widowed aunt keep her homestead going. When another Baltimorean shows up in West Glory, Zora couldn’t be more surprised. Theo de la Croix made the long trip out west hoping to court Zora, whom he has long admired from afar.

But Zora has developed an attraction to a rather less respectable fellow: Emerson Birch, a rough-mannered young “sooner” whose fertile land is coveted.

As Zora begins to suspect that there may be more than luck behind Emerson’s good land, she discovers an extraordinary, astonishing power of her own: the ability to sense water under the parched earth. When her aunt hires her out as a “springsweet” to advise other settlers where to dig their wells, Zora feels the burden of holding the key to something so essential to survival in this unforgiving land. Even more, she finds herself longing for love the way the prairie thirsts for water. Maybe, in the wildness of the territories, Zora can finally move beyond simply surviving and start living.

Amazon link to pre-order The Springsweet