Book Review: Wildflowers from Winter

I recently began following Author Katie Ganshert’s blog, just weeks before her debut novel Wildflowers from Winter was released. It’s been fun getting to know Katie and watching her launch this book. I had the opportunity to participate in her Wildflowers from Winter Blog Hop and was fortunate enough to win an Advanced Reader Copy!

Let me say up front, I am a die-hard historical fiction reader. I can count the contemporary romances I’ve read on my right hand, but I was eager to read Katie’s novel for three reasons:

1. I’ve never followed an author while they launched their first novel and that alone intrigued me to read it.

2. The story line is fascinating and I especially love that it’s set in Iowa, my neighbor state to the south and a place I lived for over a year.

3. As I meet new authors I want to be open to read all sorts of genres so that I can support their work.

From the first sentence in Wildflowers from Winter, I was hooked. The opening scene starts in first person narrative and it brought me into the heart and mind of the heroine immediately. In an interesting twist, the novel transitions into third person narrative and then flips back and forth between first and third person periodically. I liked these different points of view and I thought it worked well.

Katie expertly captured the five senses and transported me into the story world through the smell of coffee, the taste of a cool Pepsi, the feel of the bitter cold, gazing upon the Iowa farmland and hearing the falling rain.  I enjoyed the references to pop (a very Midwestern term) and the Boundary Waters, which is a canoeing area in the northern portion of Minnesota.  These references helped bring the plot into the real world and made me feel like I was right there with the characters.

I was moved along with the story, waiting as bits of the puzzle were put together, feeling the heroine’s pain and heartache and watching as she found peace and healing with her past. Every character felt real to me and jumped off the page. The hero was everything a hero should be and the love story was sweet.

Katie tackled some tough issues in this book. Really tough. And she brought you deep into the minds of the main characters. These issues could have pulled the story into a black hole, leaving the reader feeling heavy and discouraged, but Katie expertly balances these aspects of her book with carefully crafted scenes of hope and possibility. The heroine’s spiritual journey is especially poignant and Katie handled it beautifully.

Wildflowers from Winter kept me up well past bedtime on several occasions! I would highly recommend it, and, as I said, I’m not a big fan of contemporary novels, but this one has me reconsidering. I look forward to reading Katie's next book, Wishing on Willows.

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 A young architect at a prestigious Chicago firm, Bethany Quinn has built a life far removed from her trailer park teen years. Until an interruption from her estranged mother reveals that tragedy has struck in her hometown and a reluctant Bethany is called back to rural Iowa. Determined to pay her respects while avoiding any emotional entanglements, she vows not to stay long. But the unexpected inheritance of farmland and a startling turn of events in Chicago forces Bethany to come up with a new plan.

Handsome farmhand Evan Price has taken care of the Quinn farm for years. So when Bethany is left the land, he must fight her decisions to realize his dreams. But even as he disagrees with Bethany’s vision, Evan feels drawn to her and the pain she keeps so carefully locked away.

For Bethany, making peace with her past and the God of her childhood doesn’t seem like the path to freedom. Is letting go the only way to new life, love and a peace she’s not even sure exists?

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Katie Ganshert was born and raised in the Midwest, where she writes stories about finding faith and falling in love. When she’s not busy plotting her next novel, she enjoys going on romantic dates with her husband, playing make-believe with her wild-child of a son, and chatting with her girlfriends over bagels and coffee.

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What about you? Have you read Wildflowers from Winter? Do you prefer historical or contemporary fiction?