Jerry Apps – författare

Fans of Jerry Apps will delight in his latest novel, ""Blue Shadows Farm"", which follows the intriguing family story of three generations on a Wisconsin farm. Silas Starkweather, a Civil War veteran, is drawn to Wisconsin and homesteads 160 acres in Ames County, where he is known as the mysterious farmer forever digging holes. After years of hardship and toil, however, Silas develops a commitment to farming his land and respect for his new community. When Silas' son Abe inherits Blue Shadows Farm he chooses to keep the land out of reluctant necessity, distilling and distributing 'purified corn water' throughout Prohibition and the Great Depression in order to stay solvent. Abe's daughter, Emma, willingly takes over the farm after her mother's death. Emma's love for this place inspires her to open the farm to schoolchildren and families who share her respect for it. As she considers selling the land, Emma is confronted with a difficult question - who, through thick and thin, will care for Blue Shadows Farm as her family has done for over a century? In the midst of a controversy that disrupts the entire community, Emma looks into her family's past to help her make crucial decisions about the future of its land. Through the story of the Starkweather family's changing fortunes, and each generation's very different relationship with the farm and the land, ""Blue Shadows Farm"" is in some ways the narrative of all farmers and the increasingly difficult challenges they face as committed stewards of the land.

The fourth novel in Jerry Apps's Ames County series, Cranberry Red brings the story into the present, portraying the challenges of agriculture in the twenty-first century. As the novel opens, Ben Wesley has lost his job as agricultural agent for Ames County. He is soon hired as a research application specialist for Osborne University, a for-profit institution that has developed 'Cranberry Red,' a new chemical that promises not only to improve cranberry crop yields but also to endow the fruits with the power to prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer's disease. Ben must promote the new product to cranberry growers in Ames County and beyond, but he worries whether the promised results are credible. Was Cranberry Red rushed to market? When the chemical does all that the university claims it will do, Ben is relieved . . . until disturbing side effects emerge. Can he criticize Cranberry Red and safeguard farmers and consumers without losing his job, or will Ben's honesty get him fired while his community continues to get sicker?