SOURCE: Chong, Denise. “In the Playground of Good and Evil.” Washington Post Book World (28 January 1997): D10.

In the following positive review, Chong views The Orchard on Fire as a charming and evocative novel.

You can have a near out-of-body experience with Shena Mackay's latest novel, The Orchard on Fire. In its opening pages the narrator, April Harlency, remembers her childhood: “I was never a particularly balletic or acrobatic child, but sometimes when I was happy I could see another self slip from my body and run leaping and doing cartwheels, somersaulting through the air beside me. I almost glimpse her now, running along an undulating hedge and telegraph poles' tightropes.” Few readers can help but see their other self slip from between the pages. By the time they catch their breath at this compact novel's end, they will both welcome and regret the inevitable journey back to adulthood...