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Wildfire #11
An April Love Story
Life is great for Marnie MacDonald—until her parents announce they're moving, taking her away from everything she knows and loves
Popular high school sophomore Marnie MacDonald loves her life. Then her parents break the news: They're moving to North Carolina! And that's not even the worst part. The MacDonalds are moving with their best friends, the Petersons—including their son, Lucas, a boy Marnie can't stand.
In the blink of an eye, her world is uprooted. She has to leave school, her friends—all the things that matter most. And how's she supposed to get along without her boyfriend, Joel, the super-cool jock who would have taken her to his senior prom? Suddenly, Marnie's milking goats and picking apples on a farm with no telephones, no TV, and no after-school activities.
But something starts to happen after she leaves the city and "goes back to the land." She discovers a world she never knew existed—a whole new way of life. And the biggest shock of all? The boy she thought she hated is growing more and more appealing. Too bad Lucas doesn't have a clue how Marnie feels. Or does he?
Popular high school sophomore Marnie MacDonald loves her life. Then her parents break the news: They're moving to North Carolina! And that's not even the worst part. The MacDonalds are moving with their best friends, the Petersons—including their son, Lucas, a boy Marnie can't stand.
In the blink of an eye, her world is uprooted. She has to leave school, her friends—all the things that matter most. And how's she supposed to get along without her boyfriend, Joel, the super-cool jock who would have taken her to his senior prom? Suddenly, Marnie's milking goats and picking apples on a farm with no telephones, no TV, and no after-school activities.
But something starts to happen after she leaves the city and "goes back to the land." She discovers a world she never knew existed—a whole new way of life. And the biggest shock of all? The boy she thought she hated is growing more and more appealing. Too bad Lucas doesn't have a clue how Marnie feels. Or does he?
172 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 19, 1981
About the author
Caroline B. Cooney
131 books1,780 followersCaroline Cooney knew in sixth grade that she wanted to be a writer when "the best teacher I ever had in my life" made writing her main focus. "He used to rip off covers from The New Yorker and pass them around and make us write a short story on whichever cover we got. I started writing then and never stopped!"
When her children were young, Caroline started writing books for young people -- with remarkable results. She began to sell stories to Seventeen magazine and soon after began writing books. Suspense novels are her favorites to read and write. "In a suspense novel, you can count on action."
To keep her stories realistic, Caroline visits many schools outside of her area, learning more about teenagers all the time. She often organizes what she calls a "plotting game," in which students work together to create plots for stories. Caroline lives in Westbrook, Connecticut and when she's not writing she volunteers at a hospital, plays piano for the school musicals and daydreams!
- Scholastic.com
When her children were young, Caroline started writing books for young people -- with remarkable results. She began to sell stories to Seventeen magazine and soon after began writing books. Suspense novels are her favorites to read and write. "In a suspense novel, you can count on action."
To keep her stories realistic, Caroline visits many schools outside of her area, learning more about teenagers all the time. She often organizes what she calls a "plotting game," in which students work together to create plots for stories. Caroline lives in Westbrook, Connecticut and when she's not writing she volunteers at a hospital, plays piano for the school musicals and daydreams!
- Scholastic.com
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 9, 2015
Loved this book so much in 8th grade, that I stole it from the library. Twenty years later it's still on my bookshelf, proudly nestled next to Jeffrey Eugenides and cult cinema books. You never outgrow "An April Love Story".
May 12, 2021
I <3 this book. I’ve had it forever, just one of those tiny paperbacks that I’m not even sure where it originally came from. I mean, it’s certainly a product of its genre and its time, but if you can appreciate it for what it is, it’s a good little book. My favorite part is the way Marnie and Lucas talk to each other. They’re sarcastic, but they’re so bright, and you can read the undercurrent of caring underneath their words. The premise is a fun one; Marnie and Lucas’s family move totally off the grid and become “back to the land” farmers. This allows for the two of them to get into a variety of scenarios you don’t find in your average teen romance. I also appreciate the way the characters grow throughout the books, and the interactions between Marnie and her mother are a lot of fun. Yes, absolutely, the book is dated, but I still love it.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5.
April 25, 2021
I like the romance, but there’s too much frustration in what their parents put them through. It’s one thing to leave the city for life in the country. It’s a whole other story when they choose to live without electricity or indoor plumbing. The worst thing was essentially spending whatever they had put aside for their kids’ college educations to buy this farm where they are living hand to mouth. I hated seeing Lucas so heartbroken about not being able to go to college. I’m glad they survived but it was a very unhappy journey.
February 16, 2017
2/10/17
Can't help it. I have to read this at least once a year. It's just so freaking adorable and funny and romantic, and it takes zero time to read. I don't know why all of the other books like this seem formulaic and boring, yet this one never loses its magic!
Also, now that Goodreads counts rereads towards the reading challenge, I am a new person. I feel like I can finally I've life the way it was meant to be lived!
1/2015
Recently reread this for the millionth time. One of my all time favorites, and I have no idea why!
Thanks mom, for buying this when you were 12!
Not sure when I first read this:
I get tired of all Wildfire romances besides this one, which for some reason I can't get enough of.
Can't help it. I have to read this at least once a year. It's just so freaking adorable and funny and romantic, and it takes zero time to read. I don't know why all of the other books like this seem formulaic and boring, yet this one never loses its magic!
Also, now that Goodreads counts rereads towards the reading challenge, I am a new person. I feel like I can finally I've life the way it was meant to be lived!
1/2015
Recently reread this for the millionth time. One of my all time favorites, and I have no idea why!
Thanks mom, for buying this when you were 12!
Not sure when I first read this:
I get tired of all Wildfire romances besides this one, which for some reason I can't get enough of.
July 16, 2023
4.5 stars rounded down. I read this book so many times as a young teen and loved everything about it. Over three decades later, I have thought about it off and on over the years and I wanted to read it to see if I still might enjoy it even a little bit. It's from 1981 and has a 1970s back-to-the-earth feel, so it's definitely dated at times. I didn't love it quite like I did in the late 80s, but I'd definitely read it again. As an adult and parent myself to teens, the parents made me so mad; I can't imagine what I thought of them when I read this as a teen. I wish it had an epilogue, so I knew for sure that Marnie and Lucas got their happily ever after.
October 22, 2017
I really enjoyed this cute and short book! I loved the whole farm aspect, especially since I've always wanted to live on a farm (although, I wouldn't want to live with no electricity and indoor plumbing like they did!)
At first I found Marnie to be kind of irritating but she grew on me. And I love Lucas, he's too good to his family, its so adorable!
At first I found Marnie to be kind of irritating but she grew on me. And I love Lucas, he's too good to his family, its so adorable!
January 7, 2026
Love this book. It was one of my favorites back when I was a teen, and I still enjoy it now.
May 16, 2012
So, before that whole "Face on the Milk Carton" thing that changed my opinion about Caroline B. Cooney (and unfortunately not for the better), I really loved her Wildfire and Silhouette romances. This is a classic plot written with a modern realism (at least for the 80's) -- and her sense of humor is evident. Marnie is unfortunately somewhat brainless and completely cliche in her superficiality prior to their move "back to the land". The drastic changes of giving up everything and going to subsistence farming were much more extreme than one would expect for a "light read" but her camaraderie with Lucas (and eventual romance) were appropriately invested with the time it took for their relationship to evolve. Both Marnie and Lucas grow and their concurrent emotional maturation as well as their shouldering of adult opinions and responsibilities (such as Lucas staying home to help the parents make a go of the orchard) lent a depth to the story. The extremes to which the parents values change (from valuing money, jobs, education to completely devaluing them) and the fact that the parents were unable to grasp that their almost-adult children had different values was a little hard to believe. Overall a very entertaining story and good read. 4 plus stars.
January 11, 2015
Ok, this is one of those absolutely cheesy teen romances that I read when I was an actual teen. It crossed my mind recently and was reasonably inexpensive for the Kindle, so I re-read it.
It held up fairly well. Oh, sure, it was written before cell phones and the like, so there's no mention of those, but it doesn't feel overly dated, apart from small things here and there.
It's still a cheesy teen romance. But as just that, it's decent.
It held up fairly well. Oh, sure, it was written before cell phones and the like, so there's no mention of those, but it doesn't feel overly dated, apart from small things here and there.
It's still a cheesy teen romance. But as just that, it's decent.
February 20, 2013
I'm giving this bunches of stars because when I read this in eighth grade (having just newly moved several states away), I identified with the loneliness in the book. I remember thinking (in 1984) how 1970's it all was, but still loved it.
September 29, 2012
I got this book in 7th grade and have read it too many times to count.
September 17, 2018
After a rough start, I ended up really liking this one.
August 29, 2023
Another childhood reread—here, Marnie is uprooted from her wealthy New York life when her parents decide they want to live out their dream of homesteading in North Carolina with their family friends. Think orchards, think canning and soap-making, think no phone and no electricity and no indoor plumbing. (Also no outdoor plumbing, actually. But an outhouse!)
It's a fairly simple story, but I read everything Caroline B. Cooney that I could get my hands on in middle and high school, and I remember finding this at a secondhand book store and thinking, 'Huh, this doesn't look like a Caroline B. Cooney book'...and then of course buying it anyway. Some things still make me scratch my head now: first, the two families go from wealthy, or at least comfortably well off, in New York to scraping by on a farm—and while I understand that getting set up for farming can take a lot of money, and they're practicing subsistence farming anyway...where did all their New York money go? They're basically on a shoestring budget from the get-go, and no offense to farms in North Carolina, but I'm guessing that a small farm in rural North Carolina in the early 1980s did not cost the equivalent of two Manhattan apartments plus two well-off families' savings accounts. And second: I suspect that if this were written in 2023, the context of their North Carolina life would be very different. I can't imagine a 2023 version of this book without electricity and plumbing, for example, and I wonder just how out there readers in 1981 would have found that bit. The 2023 equivalent would be more like 'no smartphone'...but I think the book would be rather the poorer for it. (I wasn't even alive when the actual book was written, but it has such a nostalgic feel.)
But Cooney is good at her craft. This is a light book, written for a series that was all about light romances, and she still manages to bring in a whole lot of setting and side friendships/relationships and character growth. I love that although Marnie has to start over at a new high school as a junior, that's a really minor point—there's no mean girl drama at all, and even if there were, Marnie wouldn't really have the time to deal with it because...geese to feed. And apples to pick. And tomatoes to can. And so it goes... The details really make the book, and while it is quite outdated (and heavily romanticized, this farm life) in some ways, I wouldn't mind reading it again in another ten or so years.
It's a fairly simple story, but I read everything Caroline B. Cooney that I could get my hands on in middle and high school, and I remember finding this at a secondhand book store and thinking, 'Huh, this doesn't look like a Caroline B. Cooney book'...and then of course buying it anyway. Some things still make me scratch my head now: first, the two families go from wealthy, or at least comfortably well off, in New York to scraping by on a farm—and while I understand that getting set up for farming can take a lot of money, and they're practicing subsistence farming anyway...where did all their New York money go? They're basically on a shoestring budget from the get-go, and no offense to farms in North Carolina, but I'm guessing that a small farm in rural North Carolina in the early 1980s did not cost the equivalent of two Manhattan apartments plus two well-off families' savings accounts. And second: I suspect that if this were written in 2023, the context of their North Carolina life would be very different. I can't imagine a 2023 version of this book without electricity and plumbing, for example, and I wonder just how out there readers in 1981 would have found that bit. The 2023 equivalent would be more like 'no smartphone'...but I think the book would be rather the poorer for it. (I wasn't even alive when the actual book was written, but it has such a nostalgic feel.)
But Cooney is good at her craft. This is a light book, written for a series that was all about light romances, and she still manages to bring in a whole lot of setting and side friendships/relationships and character growth. I love that although Marnie has to start over at a new high school as a junior, that's a really minor point—there's no mean girl drama at all, and even if there were, Marnie wouldn't really have the time to deal with it because...geese to feed. And apples to pick. And tomatoes to can. And so it goes... The details really make the book, and while it is quite outdated (and heavily romanticized, this farm life) in some ways, I wouldn't mind reading it again in another ten or so years.
July 16, 2025
YA romance
The close parents of two teens decide to chuck modern life and make their living from the land. Amidst the hard work and chores the teens learn to respect hard work and the land and each other.
Although at first, I felt that the reaction of the teens wasn’t really authentic though I greatly appreciated that they loved and respected their parents which moderated the drastic change in their lives. As time went on I enjoyed the story more than I expected to and I did like the ending.
It’s nice to have a story that’s different.
The close parents of two teens decide to chuck modern life and make their living from the land. Amidst the hard work and chores the teens learn to respect hard work and the land and each other.
Although at first, I felt that the reaction of the teens wasn’t really authentic though I greatly appreciated that they loved and respected their parents which moderated the drastic change in their lives. As time went on I enjoyed the story more than I expected to and I did like the ending.
It’s nice to have a story that’s different.
June 6, 2018
One star may be because naturally, I have this thing about love stories that I never HAPPEN TO LIKE IT. I read this back in my childhood and decided never to touch love stories again.
April 18, 2026
I have read this every April since my childhood 💕
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews