The Seed Woman by
Petra Durst-Benning (translated by Edwin Miles) is the first book of the Seed
Trader’s Saga. Set in Gonningen, a village in the Swabian Mountains of Germany
where seed trading is the main source of income for its residents in the 1850s.
A young woman, Hannah Brettschneider, travels from Nuremberg to find Helmut
Kerner, the eldest son of the wealthy Kerner family. She’s pregnant and Helmut
is the father. Problem? He’s engaged to be married to Seraphine Schwarz. Helmut
quickly marries Hannah and eventually Valentin, his brother, marries Seraphine
as he has long loved her despite her affections for his brother. As everyone
lives under one roof, jealousy and manipulations begin as the brothers plan to
expand their business into other regions. Hannah begins to show interest in the
seed trade and offer new ways to conduct business. Will they listen to Hannah,
an outsider, and try her new methods? Will the business flourish?
I labored through this book. Pushing myself to finish it. I
made it through 60% of the book when a particular scene made me stop. It would
so disturbing and unsettling that I didn’t want to continue. I realized that I
didn’t care about the characters, especially Seraphine who was a bitch as she
treats Valentin horribly and plots to worm her way back into Helmut’s heart,
who didn’t love her in the first place and saw Hannah’s arrival as a blessing
in disguise. The details of the regions and the seed trade are extensive and
beautiful. I liked Hannah as the hardworking outsider who shows the village
that there are other ways to do things. And she was the only character I liked.
I do not recommend The Seed Woman. It
is one of those historical novels where the historical details are extensive
with very little or unexciting action.
The Seed Woman
is available in paperback
and eBook
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