Excellent Lombards (Hamilton)

Book Reviews
[A] tender, astute look behind the scenes at a small-scale family farm in the years when the locavore movement was just taking hold…Mary Frances goes by many names—Francie to her mother, Marlene to her father, Frankie or Imp to her brother—but as expertly rendered by Hamilton…she's a storybook character, an inquisitive, imperious but lovable girl akin to Harper Lee's Jean Louise Finch, Rumer Godden's Cecil Grey or Ian McEwan's Briony Tallis. Like them, she absorbs and channels emotion and drama, processing it for the reader as a vested outsider: an outsider because she's a child, but vested because she wants to have this land, and the life she lives on it, remain unchanged forever.
New York Times Book Review - Mary Pols


Ms. Hamilton has written what's known as a "quiet" novel, yet this beautiful coming-of-age story offers a more trenchant narrative on the sustainability of family farming.
New York Times - Carmela Ciuraru


A powerful coming-of-age story.... [Hamilton's] penetration into the hearts of her characters is as profound, perhaps more so, than ever before.... This is a very fine novel: Its people, their individual predicaments and their relationships with one another and with the land stay with the reader long after that last page has been turned.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


Funny and heartbreaking, colored with a palpable wistfulness...deeply affecting, a moving elegy for an idyllic way of life that's slipping away as development and technology encroach and children grow up and away from rural pleasures.
Miami Herald


Despite the growing threat of urbanization and her sharp-tongued librarian mother’s attempts to steer her toward university, Francie clings obsessively to the orchard.... [Eventually, she] learns that sometimes loving a person and a place means letting go. The novel ends a little abruptly, but Hamilton’s coming-of-age story is written with humour and compassion
Toronto Star


A poignant coming-of-age tale that resonates with readers...beautiful.
Romantic Times


This coming-of-age story is captivating and passionate, taking us back to being a child and believing in one thing wholeheartedly. Simply put, this is a book you won't be able to put down.
BookPage


(Starred review.) Hamilton's lushly pleasurable novel of radiant comedy, deep emotions, and resonant realizations considers the wonders of nature, the boon and burden of inheritance, and the blossoming of the self.
Booklist


A Wisconsin girl reluctantly comes of age in Hamilton's tender and rueful latest. A suspenseful opening chapter, with the Lombards racing to get their freshly baled hay into the barn...deftly sets the scene for the fraught family drama..... Richly characterized, beautifully written, and heartbreakingly poignant—another winner from this talented and popular author.
Kirkus Reviews