Novelist Shares His Story at FoxTale

While the Fourth of July merriment will have concluded, the FoxTale ladies are continuing the party Tuesday night with an Atlanta celebrity.

Author Jeffrey Stepakoff will be celebrating the release of his new novel, The Orchard at the FoxTale Booke Shoppe Tuesday at 7 p.m.

This is Stepakoff’s second novel of fiction, his first being Fireworks over Toccoa, which he released last year.

Tickets to the Launch Party are $28 and include a signed hardcover copy of The Orchard, wine, hors d’ oeuvres and prizes.

Stepakoff said he is thrilled to release his new novel at the FoxTale.

“The owners have been very supportive of me. They have a good author event program, and their book club is phenomenal.”

Ellen Ward, co-owner of the book store, encourages anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to experience one of their parties to stop in.

“If you haven’t been to a novel launch party, it’s a really great event,” Ward said. “Authors typically bring family and friends, and it’s a nice way to share a special experience with an author.” 

Stepakoff described The Orchard as a passionate love story, set in a world that combines the beauty of fragrance and flavor.

“I’ve always been impassioned about food, and I’m always looking for things that move us and stir us. Food is one of those things that does that,” Stepakoff said.

The idea for the novel came to Stepakoff when watching his young child enjoying apples one day. Sharing in the delight of an apple himself, he became fascinated with the utter brilliance of the fruit. 

“There is a beauty and purity of the simple apple,” Stepakoff said. “I’m a wine collector and just like there are various expressions of the grape, the apple too has many expressions.”

He said this is how he finds stories, by looking at material, the complexity of a scene and the movement of an idea to determine what will be compelling to an audience.

The Orchard is just that, a compelling love story about a stiletto-wearing, work-a-holic in Atlanta who is drawn to a widowed single father whose heart and hands have been calloused in the fields of his North Georgia apple farm.

Stepakoff, who grew up in Atlanta and attended Woodward High School, has been writing his entire adult life, and has once again brought his readers to the South, just as he did in his first novel, Fireworks over Toccoa.

Per his Facebook Author Fan page, Stepakoff studied journalism at the University of North Carolina, and then entered graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University to earn his MFA in playwriting and has credits on 36 television episodes, 14 different series and has worked on seven primetime staffs, producing hundreds of hours of internationally-recognized television, including The Wonder Years, Sisters and Dawson’s Creek.

Now Stepakoff devotes his talents to writing women’s popular fiction, a genre that pleases an extensive portion of the reading culture, particularly those who engage in book clubs.

“The content speaks to our social dialogue,” he said.

Stepakoff mirrors his writing style to that of Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook, but says his style is truly his own.

“I look to create fresh worlds for my stories, such as that of fireworks and fragrance, and then tell a smart, cinematic-style love story.” 

The apple has been an enduring motif in many stories, and biblical and literary references, as well as a luminous symbol of passion and intensity. In The Orchard, Stepakoff has captured this powerful essence.

To learn more about Stepakoff or to download his free ebook, Love a la Carte, a supplemental short story introducing the characters of The Orchard, visit his Author Fan Facebook page or his website.