13. A Season of Harvest

A Season of Harvest (Leah's Garden #4) Lauraine Snelling. 2024. 336 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: "Make sure you send me a telegram when you get to Linksburg."

What should you know about A Season of Harvest? 1) It's historical ROMANCE set in Nebraska in 1868. 2) It's the FOURTH in a series. 3) Each book focuses on a family of sisters; each novel features at least one romance. 4) There are brothers but they are less important because their romances aren't featured. (Okay, that might be an exaggeration). 5) By the fourth book there are dozens of characters to keep track of. No characters are dropped. 6) If you do not read the novels close together, you may end up super-confused OR super-frustrated OR both.

I have read the other novels in the series. At least I am mostly sure I have read the first two books. (I think I've read the third.) It wasn't recent enough for me to remember ANY details about the story. Not the sisters' names. Not the husbands' names. Not the kids' names. No major plot twists. No minor plot twists.

Is this one written so that it could stand alone? No. Not really. To start with the fourth book would be like tuning into a movie when you've only got thirty minutes left. You might pick up enough to know if you want to watch the movie in its entirety. You might like it enough to want to know the title so that you could seek it out to watch it. But you'll have more questions than answers. When it comes to this novel, I felt the characterization was relying so much on reader's previous knowledge in other books that it was a little lacking.

I did like that the novel shows how the Civil War still has WOUNDS--literal and figurative--that are open. Four or five years might have passed but for those who fought, for those who lost brothers or husbands or fathers or sons, it's still FRESH and very much still a trauma to work through. 

Larkspur and Lilac are the two single sisters when the novel opens. The other three novels in the series has focused on the other sisters and their romances. 

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible