The Sowing Season by Karie Powner

 

 

The Sowing Season by Katie Powner is a wonderful debut novel. Powner's story touched my emotions and I both laughed and cried in places. 

Gerrit Langinga is forced to sell his dairy farm in his early 60s and retire. He really doesn't know what to do with himself and has relationship struggles with nearly all of his family members. Rae Walters is fifteen and learning to drive reluctantly. Her parents are pushing her to pass her driver's test and to follow her blueprint for life that they have helped her lay out.When Gerrit and Rae cross paths, things begin to change for both of them in some unexpected ways.

I truly enjoyed the characters  of Rae and Gerrit as well as several others in The Sowing Season. This book is set in the Northwest but as a Midwestern girl with farmer family members and friends, I thought a lot of her farm descriptions were spot on. It was refreshing to see that both Rae and Kylee were only children as I am an only child and I could relate to some of their relationship struggles. A couple of times, I did feel both Rae and Gerrit were unjustly saddled with all of the responsibility for changing the challenging relationships but that can happen in real life too. They were both good people who made some mistakes and were trying to correct them and dealing with some struggles as things didn't work out the way they always wanted them to. As a foodie, I also love that Gerrit started cooking and hearing about his culinary adventures. I could understand some of Hannie and the kids anger and resentment. I liked Hannie and I loved the scenes where she took Gerrit shopping for new clothes. There was a lot that I loved about this book.  I think The Sowing Season is a book that both genders would enjoy. Romance is a very minor part of the book and it mainly focuses on life and relationships.

I received this book at no charge from the publisher. All opinions are my own.