Six drafts of the first page
The opening of The Salt Orchard began with the funeral. It took six drafts to move it to the almanac (sample).
Clara Wendt (sample) writes novels about weather, water and families who stay put. The sixth, The Salt Orchard, is out now.
The jacket, laid flat: every panel at its printed width.
Clara Wendt (sample) grew up on the coast north of Springfield and writes in a shed at the end of her garden, within earshot of the sea wall. The Salt Orchard is her sixth book.
At the desk, spring 2026 (sample)
Back flap, 90 mm
A tender, unhurried novel about what a family owes to a piece of land.
Sample review, a bookseller in Springfield
Wendt writes weather the way other novelists write people.
Sample review, a reader
I read it in two evenings and then walked down to the sea.
Sample review, a book club member
$27.00 (example price)
Marsh Lane Books (sample)
Back cover, 153 mm
The Salt Orchard
Wendt
27 mm
384 pages
The Salt Orchard
A novel
Clara Wendt
Front cover, 153 mm
On the strip of land between the sea wall and the marsh, the Avery family has grown apples for four generations. Every spring the salt comes a little further in.
When Nell comes home to sell the orchard after her mother’s death, she finds forty years of tide dates in the kitchen almanac, one tree nobody was allowed to prune, and a brother who has no intention of leaving.
Hardback, 384 pages
Out now (sample)
Front flap, 90 mm
Read the first page
The opening of The Salt Orchard, as it is printed: chapter one, page one.
Clara Wendt
The Salt Orchard
One
The tide came into the orchard twice a year, in March and in September, and my mother wrote both dates in the front of the kitchen almanac as if they were birthdays.
She wrote them in pencil first, the morning the water came over the bottom field, and in ink a week later, when she was sure. Forty years of them, two to a line. Some years the dates were close together, and some years there was only one, with a ring around it.
I found the almanac on the second day, in the drawer under the bread bin, with the receipts and the seed catalogues. I had come home to sell the place. I sat at the table with my coat still on and read the dates from the beginning, the way you would read a list of names on a war memorial, looking for the one you know.
Outside, Tom was walking the rows with a ladder on his shoulder, as if nothing had happened, as if there was still a harvest to bring in.
1
Six books on one shelf
Three standalone books and the Harrow novels, oldest on the left. Start the Harrow books with Weather at Harrow End.
Wendt
Wendt
Wendt
Wendt
Wendt
Wendt
Drawn to one scale: each spine is as thick as the book (0.07 mm a page) and as tall as its edition, hardback 234 mm, paperback 198 mm. The red headband is the new one.
Readings and events
Thu 23 Oct, 19:00
Launch reading and signing, The Salt Orchard
Harbour Books, Springfield (sample)
Free, book a place
Sat 1 Nov, 14:30
In conversation about land, family and weather
Springfield Book Festival, Corn Exchange (sample)
$12 (example price)
Dates and places (sample). Tickets open on the organiser’s site.
Reading it with your book club?
Every book has its own discussion questions, and Clara joins book clubs by video call most Tuesday evenings (sample).
- Ten discussion questions for each book, free to print
- A 45-minute video call for groups of six or more
- Ten copies or more at a group price from Harbour Books (sample)
Six books from the same stretch of coast
Clara Wendt (sample) worked for eleven years as a weather observer before her first book, the stories in Small Hours, came out in 2017. Every book since has been set within twenty miles of the sea wall where she grew up.
She writes in the mornings, by hand, and types the day’s pages in the afternoon.
The monthly letter
One email on the first Sunday of the month: what I am writing, what I am reading and where I will be. Free, and about five minutes to read (sample).
2,300 readers (sample). Reply to any letter to leave.
In the November letter
Sun 2 Nov
From the shed
The new book has a title, and a field
On the desk
Three novels about rivers
Where I will be
Four dates, one online
A page that was cut
The orchard in 1953
From the diary
Walking the cliff path where the Harrow books end
Eleven miles from the station on the moor to the estuary mouth, in one day (sample).
The orchard in blossom, and a new book
The trees I wrote about are in flower again, and the seventh book has a title (sample).
Bring Clara to your festival, library or book club
Readings, conversations on stage, book club evenings by video call and writing workshops. Send the date and the place; replies within a week (sample).