Keynote
A memorable coming of age story exploring a hidden side of the home front during World War II, in which a Wisconsin farm community invites Nazi POWs to work the local orchards...with consequences no one could have imagined.
Description
As a farmer’s wife in rural Wisconsin, Charlotte struggles to put food on her family’s table. With rations, shortages and a cherished son sent fighting in Europe, even the natural beauty of Door County’s cherry orchards can’t make up for her family’s hardships. So when the upcoming cherry harvest—their livelihood—is threatened by the lack of workers available, strong-willed Charlotte persuades the authorities to act on an unpopular plan: releasing German war prisoners to work in local orchards. Intertwined with Charlotte’s story is that of her teenage daughter, Kate, who saves every penny she can toward her goal of going away to university, impatient to leave the orchards behind and see the world.

When Charlotte’s husband, Thomas, befriends Karl, one of the prisoners, and brings him into their home to tutor daughter Kate, the implications of Charlotte’s decision become apparent—especially when she finds herself passionately drawn to Karl. Torn between loyalty to her soldier son and her feelings for Karl, Charlotte fails to see that Kate is becoming a young woman, with dreams and temptations of her own—including a secret romance with wealthy Clay, son of a war-profiteering senator, who shows her a world of privilege she’s never known. A horrifying crime involving Karl leads to a cover-up, raising suspicion among the neighbors about the POWs, even as Kate becomes suspicious of her mother’s activities. And when their beloved Ben returns home from Germany nursing war wounds and a hatred of Germans, secrets threaten to explode their little world.

An atmospheric and evocative debut, THE CHERRY HARVEST is a novel of patriotism and pride, first loves and illicit loves, loyalty and longing, passion and simmering tensions-and the heightened stakes of bringing war home.