One of the best books of 2021, Damnation Spring is a novel about family and community.

It’s 1977, and Rich and Colleen Gundersen are raising their son, Chub, in the Pacific Northwest in a logging community that has existed for generations. Rich is one of those loggers, just like his father and grandfather were. Both of them were killed in logging accidents, so Rich is well aware of the risks that go along with his job as a tree-topper.

Colleen is struggling with multiple miscarriages as she tries to have their second child. And as the community midwife, she is a firsthand witness to multiple miscarriages and birth defects that are plaguing other women. She begins to believe that the herbicides used by the logging industry may be the cause of this. Unknown to Colleen, Rich has spent their life savings on a grove of ancient redwood trees in the hopes of giving his family a better life.

This community finds itself caught between its logging past and the future of the environment, and Colleen and Rich find themselves on opposite sides of the issue in the hopes of protecting their family. Readers will be swept into this world and find themselves asking important questions about the environment, family, and matters of the heart.