Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen

Mr. Cohen creates a wonderful story about hope with characters and a setting that will remain in the reader's mind long after the last page is read.
I heard the author speak on the Modern Mrs. Darcy podcast. 
Harry loves trees.  Unfortunately, he works for the US Forest Service as an analyst behind a computer.  He dreams of leaving his job and working with actual trees.  His beloved wife, Beth, dies unexpectedly.  In his sorrow, he quits his job and flees to Endless Mountains in Pennsylvania.  In those woods he meets Oriana, a imaginative, intelligent girl who is dealing with her own sorrow. Her mother, Amanda, is tough and does not seem to grieve.   After reading tons of fairy tales over the past sorrowful year, Oriana reads an unique fairy tale called The Grum's Ledger.   Oriana contrives a plan which will free them from their tragedies based off of this peculiar tale. 
The plot moves along quickly yet at the same time characters develop at the perfect pace.
I loved reading this novel.  Although, there were some elements I did not appreciate (and tried to skip some paragraphs):
-swearing/f-word
-the local men lust over Amanda (not real explicit, but the author makes it well known they all want her!)
-After her husband dies, Amanda misses the physical aspect to a relationship, so she asks a local farmer to satisfy that desire.  They both agree that they do not care for each other.  They just want the physical part.  There is one chapter with some details about their physical relationship.
-The farmer video tapes their intimate interactions and shares the video with his hired hand.
(*The positive part to the last two items is that both parties feel horrible about what they had done and realize that it was a mistake.  The farmer makes amends at the end of the story.  I still did not like this piece of the story, though.)
-Borrowed from the library.