Author: Alison Stine
Release Date: 9.1.20
Publisher: Mira
"Trust me. Seeds will be more valuable than gold, and the one who can grow them? She'll be a queen."
Spring isn't coming...again. After months of tending to her mother's and step-father's abandoned illegal marijuana crops, Wylodine decides to leave her Appalachian Ohio home after her best friend sets off on a mass exodus with The Church. With nothing left to keep her on the farm and with extreme winter weather closing in, Wil leaves the farm behind, determined to find her mother in California. Equipped with a truck, tiny house, grow lights, seeds, and plenty of cash, Wil and a few fellow exiles head out on the icy roads, encountering more problems than the weather. Pirates, cults, killers, and utopian communities have cropped up in the hills and what they want most of all is Wil's talent for growing plants.
This book was a blend of The Road and The Book of the Unnamed Midwife with a touch of Mad Max: Fury Road. I was on the edge of my seat and rooting for Will and her rag-tag crew. My favorite jaw-drop moment was the final line of chapter 11! (No spoilers but send me a DM on Twitter or IG if/when you read that part to tell me what you thought.) I am very impressed that this is a debut and I think the ending was perfectly ambiguous--delivering satisfactory closure but also leaving the possibility of a sequel/series.
Alison Stine lives in the rural Appalachian foothills. A recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), she was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She has written for The Atlantic, The Nation, The Guardian, and many others. She is a contributing editor with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Visit her website, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads for more information.
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