An Unexpected Forest

Recognition for An Unexpected Forest

Winner of the 2008 Independent Book Publisher's Award for Best Regional Fiction

Winner of the 2008 Maine Literary Award

After long-time hospital attorney Horace is fired for failing to adequately represent the interests of the hospital, he returns home to discover that the U.S. Forest Service has mistakenly delivered 1,000 black spruce tree seedlings to his home in suburban Connecticut. He takes it upon himself to find a place in the wild for the tiny trees, traveling to the remote north Maine woods, while his wife Beverly worries for his safety and sanity. She herself must wrestle with whether or not to sell a beloved family home on Maine’s Vinalhaven Island.

Into the mix comes Oz, an ex-convict, who discovers new meaning helping Horace plant the trees; his girlfriend, Lucy, loves Oz and simultaneously fears a life with him.

In the end, four souls adrift find themselves on Vinalhaven Island. An Unexpected Forest is concerned with the search for a life that matters, and is endowed with strong portrayals of interpersonal relationships, and rich with humor, a story of hope and second chances.

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Praise for An Unexpected Forest

“An Unexpected Forest glows with life. Its characters are true to themselves, each lost in a particular way, yet giving and receiving love generously. Eleanor Morse has written an honest and moving story suffused with humor, a celebration of the wide dimensions of the human world—its darkness and sorrows, its joys and new beginnings.”
 — Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Adam and Eve and Ahab’s Wife

“. . . a lovely novel about the unforeseen second and third chances that life can offer. An Unexpected Forest is a celebration of resilience and reinforces one’s faith in the risky business of life.”
 — Anne LeClaire, author of Leaving Eden, Entering Normal, and The Law of Bound Hearts

“. . . a beautiful book that’s both mischievous and wise. The language evokes Maine’s wild, endangered gifts of woods, bogs and islands. And its improbable band of characters—their lives full of disarray as well as promise—remind us that second chances are possible, at any age, if we dare take risks on behalf of who and what we love.”
— Kate Kennedy, author of End Over End