This book was not my favorite. I loved the history of it. Learning more about what it would have been like in that time was fascinating. I just reviewed Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson. #NetGalley

I enjoyed this book as it vaguely reminded me of a book I adored years ago, Sometimes A Great Notion. I'm not necessarily a fan of logging but this had a great family plot as well! Rich and Colleen have had many challenges in life--including miscarriages-- but now have 6-year-old Chub who is adorable and smart. Colleen is a midwife who has had several "clients" with odd births--many resulting in death. Rich is a logger but there are concerns about the land and who "owns" it, what should be done with it, and what its future holds in the coming years. All of these come together in a heartwarming, heartbreaking novel that gripped me hard and kept me reading long into the night!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

This book I tried terribly hard to get into. I just could never crack past the first 1/3 of the book. There is nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed the writing and what the author was trying to do. It just wasn’t a book that drew me in and kept my attention. I do plan to try and pick it up again in the future. But at the time of reading it, it wasn’t for me.

Interesting concept with important warnings about our natural resources. Unfortunately, this book dragged for me at points, and I had to force myself to keep reading. Taking place in Northern California, the back plot had promise; Richard Gunderson a fourth-generation lumberman with a younger wife, Colleen, struggles to survive in an area run by a large lumber company.

Afraid of losing his job, Richard buys property in hopes of harvesting his own trees. Colleen is a midwife who is aware of the damage the lumber company has caused; she has suffered several miscarriages as well as documented many abnormalities in babies born in the area. There is no doubt that the company is damaging natural resources through chemicals. Richard and Colleen end up on opposite sides of the issue, but will they be able to overcome this to save their family including their young son.

Fortunately, it picked up at points and I found myself interested enough to keep going. I was very involved in finding out how it would be settled. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest review. I gave this book three stars.

I found this book to be well written with well developed characters, Unfortunately it just didn’t keep my attention.. I found it to be too slow of a build up and I lost interest.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this title.

Economy and ecology go head to head in this debut novel. A small town in 1977 that depends upon the logging industry is beginning to realize the effects of the herbicides used to clear the roads of brush. There are many heartbreaking clues to show the residents how their air and water are tainted. The family featured (Rich (a logger), Colleen, and Chub Gunderson have suffered from an unusual number of miscarriages. As a midwife, Colleen begins to notice birth defects and even death occurring in the births she assists. An old boyfriend is back in town taking water samples. Protestors are doing their best to keep the logging from continuing. And the park system is ready to cordon off more redwood land. The town sits on a powder keg and Rich has unwisely purchased timber land rich for harvesting with no roads to take out the logs. The Gunderson will win your heart. Lark, the crusty old family friend who spends his days finding Sasquatch in every hunk of wood and providing porta potties for tourists (on the honor system) will make you laugh. There was a bit too much logging lingo in there for me to decipher, so not quite a 5-star read. The miracle of life and the beauty of commitment shine through. Along with the need to be compassionate as we move forward in our stewardship of God's creation. Hand this to readers who loved Miracle Creek and The Great Alone.

Thank you to Scribner and Edelweiss+ for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

Rich and Colleen struggle with disrupting the life they know in northern California when it comes to light that the weed-killing sprays used to destroy the underbrush is harming the community's population. The water supply is contaminated and infants, if they are carried to term, are born and die with severe brain issues. The challenge to save the tree industry that has fed the families for generations or to acknowledge how the industry practices are killing people, rips through the community. Rich and Colleen's marriage is also tested by the secrets they keep from each other. Ash Davidson creates good characters that show the range of personalities and connections to family.

Damnation Spring is a fascinating look at the timber industry of the Northern California coast in the 1970s and the lives that are so closely intertwined with it. This novel is more of a slow burn, a story to immerse yourself in, rather than read quickly and move on to the next book on your TBR.

Parts of the story are heart-wrenching, while others are filled with love and hope. The characters are well-written and create all kinds of conflicting emotions in the reader.

Content/Trigger Warning: miscarriages, birth defects, strong language

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson is a rich, emotional novel about a logging family in the 1970’s California redwoods. They face hardships both professionally and deeply personally. This will be a fit for fans of Kristin Hannah’s “The Great Alone” or those who enjoyed memories including “Educated,” “The Glass Castle,” and “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Damnation Spring is a well-written novel centering around a logging community and a family whose entire existence depends on the logging industry. When environmental issues threaten to put an end to the industry in their area, it creates much strife within the community and within the families involved.

The story centers around the Gunderson family. Rich has grown up in a logging family and depends completely on the land. His wife, Colleen is a midwife and mother to their son Chub. Colleen has had eight miscarriages and longs desperately for another child. In her work as a midwife, she has begun to see unusual birth defects, such as a baby born with a severe brain defect.

When an environmentalist comes into town, Colleen begins to believe the connection between the spraying and the birth defects and illnesses she has seen within the community. Naturally this puts a strain on her marriage and the relationship with her extended family.

This was a very maudlin, slow-moving story, but I came to love the Gunderson family. The people in the community were hard-working and hard-living.

This is not a story for readers who are looking for an uplifting read, but it was well written and I found it interesting enough to read until the end.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me to read and advance copy. I am happy to offer my honest review.

This book started slow and I wasn’t sure I would like it. Then I got into it and the setting really started pulling me in. Having a history in the medical field and kids in environmental studies really brought the book home for me. What worked was the setting, the topic , the family connections . What didn’t was the slower beginning . I would recommend and in fact I have and I bought a copy . Thank you to NetGalley for the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Damnation Spring is the debut novel by Ash Davidson set among the giant redwoods of Northern California in 1977.
Rich Gunderson is a third generation logger and tree topper. Logging is a dangerous job and the industry is now constrained by rules that bring about continuing layoffs.
Rich’s wife, Colleen, is an amateur midwife in town and mother to their young son, Chub. The couple want a better life for their son and set on two different paths to reach their ultimate goal.
Rich without Colleen’s knowledge invests all of their savings in a 700-acre property ripe for logging that could keep him in business for generations.
His wife wants another child but after suffering multiple miscarriages, believes that the chemicals being used by the logging company are responsible for the towns health problems.
Conflict between the logging company and environmental groups lead to tensions not only between Rich and Colleen but also members of the town now facing the need to choose between economic and health concerns.
Damnation Spring may be the story of one couples struggle to keep their family intact during a turbulent dangerous time in 1977 but it is no different from the struggles that families and towns face today.
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley. #NetGalley #DamnationSpring

Thank you to @netgalley & @scribnerbooks for access to this e-book! I received this book after it’s pub date, so I slept on it for waaay too long. I definitely should have picked it up sooner because I really enjoyed it.
 
For starters, the characters were really fun. Whether they were easily likeable or downright awful, it made for a captivating cast. The story is told through 3 POVs, Rich, who is a redwood logger near the California coast; his wife, Colleen; and their son, Chub (who is only 5-6 throughout the story so his chapters didn’t happen often but were still an interesting perspective).
 
The story as a whole was fascinating. Reading about all the intricacies of working with and taking down these monstrous trees was really unique (albeit a little confusing at times – a lot of lumber buzzwords that went right over my head lol). And the small town community vibes were good too. Add in the mystery around the chemicals being sprayed to make way for the loggers to work (and whether or not they were affecting the people living there), and it made for a really well-rounded story.
 
I will say that I’m still not sure how I felt about the ending. It wasn’t really what I expected (or wanted). Also, some parts were a bit slower than others, but overall, I really liked this one.

Damnation Spring, the first novel of Ash Davidson, is a powerful heart-rending story of the forces that can shatter a marriage, a town, a way of life.

Colleen Gunderson is an amateur mid-wife, who is desperate for a 2nd child after several miscarriages - many more than her husband Rich who is a fourth generation tree topper, knows. Their one child, Chubb, lives for the tales his father relates of their family's history among the towering redwoods, some that began growing during the time of Christ. They live in the beautiful northwest among these towering redwoods, where the logging industry has made a good living for families for over 100 years. Rich fills Chubb's days and memories with the folklore and woodcraft he was taught.

Colleen, who tends to the poor pregnant wives and daughters of these loggers, begins paying close attention to the numbers of those who either miscarry or bring to term disabled babies. To take the anxiety even higher, a group of protesters show up in the area, determined to stop the logging and a researcher testing the local waterways for evidence of dangerous insecticides.

Davidson takes a complicated story and skillfully pulls together the disparate parts and assembles them in a whole that is both beautiful and disturbing. She uses the viewpoints of Rich, Colleen and even young Chubb to show what a confusing problem with which we are all faced - how to enjoy the beauty we have been given but also how to use what we have to make a living, as well as a life.

It’s 1977 and Colleen and Rich Gundersen live with their young son Chub in a logging town on the Northern coast of California. They like everyone else in their small community live by tree harvesting seasons dictated by the rains that come each year.

Rich is a tree-topper, a dangerous job if there ever was one, as he scales redwoods hundreds of feet high just like his father and grandfather before him. He was born to log, it’s in his blood, but he is tired. It’s a physically taxing job, and he wants an easier life for his son. Without telling his wife, he leverages everything for a piece of ancient redwoods, that once cut for timber, should set them up for life. A typically straightforward and fair man, keeping this secret pains him.

Colleen stays at home with their young son Chub and midwifes locally for those who cannot afford to go to the hospital. In the last several years she has seen more women suffer from miscarriages (including several herself), and those blessed with pregnancies that make it to term seem to have a lot of problems—severe problems. When an old love comes back to town, she doesn’t want to see him, but when he explains the water is being poisoned by the spray the logging companies use, she is forced to listen.

The town and the Gundersens themselves, quickly become divided. There are those who are loyal to the industry that has fed and clothed their families for generations. And then there are the others—the ones who find all these health problems in their community suspect and want to get to the bottom of it. The conflict starts at a simmer, and quickly escalates causing irreparable damage so many in the community.

This novel is about a way of life that is disappearing and how a community evolves. It’s about friends and family becoming adversaries. It’s about the impact of man on the environment. It’s about love and marriage and how much a bond can be tested without breaking. Though a bit verbose at times for me, especially all the logger jargon, I appreciate the author’s attention to detail. If you want a fast paced book, this isn’t it. Damnation Spring reads like literary fiction at its finest.

Thank you to NetGalley, Scribner, and of course Ash Davidson for the advanced copy. Damnation Spring is out now. All opinions are my own.

This novel was…a lot. I felt such a range of emotions reading it - between anger, frustration, heartbreak, fear, etc.
Rich, Colleen, and their son Chub (that name irritated me), live in California on coast in a rural Redwood logging town. There is so much to unpack here, marriage, death, infidelity, child loss, birth defects, poison, strained relationships, the list goes on. Although this is a work of fiction, it made me consider all of the chemicals we interact with daily and what implications they may have on our lives.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This story was beautifully written and I really took my time reading it. Part of the reason I took my time was because the beginning started off very slow. The story was descriptive, and although it did seem to be too much at times, I think the reader would have been lost without it unless they had a background in logging. I liked the dual perspective, but I definitely enjoyed Colleen's parts much more than Rich. There was a lot of depth to this and as long as you are not expecting to devour this is one setting, I think it would be very enjoyable. I would recommend this to readers that enjoyed books like The Great Alone and The Four Winds.

Overtly descriptive to the point of obnoxious and/or annoying. There's lots of logging talk without much context, so those of us that aren't arborists or aren't well-versed on forests and agriculture, won't really understand what's going on with those parts of the book. I see this is a debut novel, so I'm giving a lot of leeway for this budding author, as I see quite a bit of potential here. I just couldn't get on board with this particular book though; there's just too much in the way of pointless descriptions and logging jargon. It ruined what would have otherwise been a good family drama novel. Anyways... better luck next time 👍

Thanks netgalley for giving me the advanced pdf so that I can share my thoughts and opinions with y'all 🧡

The first 20% is a slog, maybe even the first 40%. But by the end I was sitting with tears streaming down my face. I became attached to the characters, the setting, the entire plot. It’s a story of life and love and loss, it’s a story of growth, forgiveness and hope, it’s a story of family, work and trees. I almost gave up and I’m glad I didn’t.

This book is interesting because of its (modern) historical perspective on environmental issues. I also wanted to know more about it because it takes place in Northern California, a familiar location with awe-inspiring redwoods. It's heavy, though this is to be expected given the premise, but worthwhile.