This Promised Land

A retiree contends with the ghosts of her painful past in this moving tale of second chances from Gohlke (Ladies of the Lake). At 16, Ginny Pickering ran away from her family’s Christmas tree farm to marry farmhand Curtis Boyden. She’s been estranged from her family ever since. Nearly five decades later, she gets word from an attorney that she’s inherited the tree farm following her brother Harold’s death, but upon returning home she learns that his ill-advised business deals have sunk the farm so deeply into debt that few options remain but to sell. Things get more complicated when Harold’s cash-strapped son Mark and his three young children show up. Ginny convinces her grandnephews to help improve the land so she can sell it at a high price. In the process, she becomes increasingly enmeshed in the family’s struggles. She forms an especially close bond with Mark, a Vietnam veteran who suffers from PTSD like Ginny’s late WWII vet husband. Just as Ginny starts to wonder whether God is calling her to fight to save the land, a shocking discovery threatens the future of the farm and the Pickering family itself. Gohlke sensitively highlights the far-reaching effects of PTSD and family trauma, imbuing the plot with emotional resonance while leaving room for the promise of hope and renewal. Readers will find this tough to forget. (Apr.)