This is a truly remarkable debut novel, which kept me so engaged that I looked forward to getting back to it every chance I had. I'm usually asleep by 11:30 p.m., but I stayed up until 2:30 this morning to finish it.

The author conjured vivid images of the land and the harsh realities of life there. I enjoyed seeing each of the characters, their backstories and struggles being gradually revealed. Colleen and her brother-in-law, Eugene were equally memorable if opposite in every way.

Colleen's long-suffering support and efforts to protect her sister, Enid, and her children from the destitution and danger inflicted by Eugene were heartbreaking. Colleen's deep love for her husband, Rich, was often tested by outside forces on both sides, yet never diminished. I was moved by her devotion to their son, Chubb, evident in her loving and playful parenting, steadfast encouragement and barefaced affection, all anchored to the hard-as-nails foundation of motherlove. The complexity of'all the characters' relationships with each other and the land was expertly woven into a fine-gauge tapestry with nuance and depth as the story evolved to a deeply felt ending.

This book was much more than I had expected. I highly recommend it.

Absolutely thrilling. I loved every page. Highly recommend for fans of the Overstory and Parable of the Sower—kind of a mashup of that, if that makes sense to anyone!

This is Ash Davidson's debut novel and this will not be a one hit wonder! This story will break your heart over and over and then will fill in the pieces and make it whole again. I loved the way she writes, beautiful descriptions that had me feeling like I was in the Pacific NorthWest (how I wish!). You will get to know the characters, feel their love, their losses and their heartbreaks, but you will also feel their hope. 4 starS!!!

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson is a read that truly does get better as you read it. I often feel impatient with books that have a lot of specific, detailed information that move the plot line, but this book makes it work. Set in timber country, the story follows the lives of two sisters and their logger spouses. The gumption it must take to fell those enormous trees is something not all of us possess. I honestly can't imagine living these lives, but I am grateful for the look inside.

This would have been 3 star review but for some scenes that got me towards the end. It's beautiful writing. Very detailed which could make it slow going for some. Damnation Spring requires patience if you want to make it to the end.

The first section of the book, during logging season, I would skim over the scenes of Rich at work. Those scenes often felt too repetitive. Blue collar white guys in the 70s being raunchy and territorial. Beating up hippies and environmentalists on the job. Plus there were logging terms used that had me confused until I realized that pumpkins weren't the gourds of Halloween but how the loggers described a tree.

I can see why some reviewers did not finish the book because it's a bit to get through. It's every day life for the Gunderson's with a bit of drama thrown in. You'd get bored too if you had to read about my daily routine over a year.

I'm still contemplating the ending. Did I love it? Did I feel like it had to end this way? I don't know. It did get me. But I don't know...

Damnation Spring is set in Northern California in the late 1970s. It is a glimpse into the realities of a logging community and how politics and loyalty contribute, for better or for worse.

What I liked:
-This was a learning experience for me. Not only is a lot of information given about logging in general, but the environmental impacts of removing trees and spraying herbicides is detailed as well.
-Ash Davidson did a great job of representing the various perspectives in this story, from the loggers to the environmentalists and everyone caught in between.
-These characters are well written and compelling. Each of the POVs used to tell the story has its own voice.
-The setting is as much of a character as the people. The precariousness of everything is visible.

What I didn't like:
-The only negative I have is that some parts of the story did seem to drag a bit and felt repetitive.

Thank you Scribner and NetGalley for the free digital copy in exchange for an honest review. Damnation Spring is available now! 4.25 stars

Damnation Spring is described as "...The the deeply human story of a Pacific Northwest logging town wrenched in two by a mystery that threatens to derail its way of life" - and when I saw it was one of the Book of The Month Club August selections, I was immediately intrigued.
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I alternating reading and listening to Damnation Spring (which clocks in at 464 pages) and while my overall reading is slow going right now (thank you Pandemic Fatigue), I found it completely compelling.
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It's a character-driven novel, and I found that author Ash Davidson built her characters so well that I could almost feel their emotions, which is my favorite kind of reading. ⁣The intricate premise, focusing on friendship, marriage and how far someone will go to protect their community and way of life made this book both thought provoking and moving.
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It's beautifully and intricately crafted and the environmental issues combined with the deeply human experiences make this an impressive debut novel. I also think it would make a great fall book club discussion because there is just so much to unpack. 5/5 stars.

Thank you to Scribner Books for my gifted copy. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Life is difficult in the Pacific Northwest for those who fell the big redwoods. Rich and his wife Colleen and their young son Chub live that struggle every day. Rich has been cutting the huge trees for 38 years, like his father before him and his father before him. When the opportunity comes to purchase some land he has always wanted he feels compelled to buy it but fears what Colleen will say. Colleen has her own hardships, she is recovering from a miscarriage and is assisting as an unofficial midwife to some of the women in the small community. Shockingly, she delivers several malformed infants adding to her own grief and stress. Daniel, an old boyfriend returns to test the water for toxins. Their acquaintances and his findings are added stress to her relationship with Rush.
This was an excellent book. The hardships and realities of life in the hard skilled labor jobs in the timber industry are well researched and highlighted. Families who struggle with issues beyond their knowledge and control, violence, intolerance, and the realities of life make this book one not to be missed. It is also the story of the triumph of family, love, and the continuance of life in the midst of the struggle. This book is one not to be missed. An excellent story with characters that are unforgettable. Thanks to #DamnationSpring#NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this excellent book.

The first part of the book was slow going, but I'm sure glad I stuck with it. This was a really good book!

This book takes place in Northern coastal California, near where the giant redwoods grow and are harvested by a dedicated crew of lumberjacks. That doesn't sound too enticing, but by the end of this novel you will be so deeply steeped in their world that you would have thought you saw a reality TV show on the subject. The families that are at the heart of the drama have been loggers for generations, and it is a very hard life: one minute they are cashing five-figured paydays, the next applying for unemployment. One family has a gaggle of kids, and others are wanting more. But the birth defects start stacking up like cordwood, and figuring out whether these are the product of some herbicide spraying by the logging companies or just coincidence provides plenty of debate. The characters come to life in these pages, and I highly recommend the book, even if you have never driven through a giant Sequoia or see these wonders of nature first-hand.

”Two thousand years to grow a forest, a hundred years to fall it. No plague like man.”

Damnation Spring absolutely, utterly, inexorably wrecked me. Just wrapped my heart in a giant hug, only to shatter it into a million pieces, and I might never be okay again. I truly can’t remember the last time I was this emotionally invested in a book. But this story is gritty and beautiful and wild and raw, and I was captivated, from start-to-finish, by the world Ash Davidson has imagined.

”You can bury us, but you can’t keep us from digging our way out.”

Damnation Spring is the story of a logging town in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, where the only known way of life is cutting timber. Logging jobs keep the town’s entire economy running, with roofs over heads and food on tables. But when people start connecting the dots between the use of unregulated chemicals and the spate of miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer diagnoses in their midst, some of them start questioning whether the industry is worth the risk.

”When you poison the land, you’re poisoning your own body.”

Davidson’s writing is richly imagined, with enough immersive detail to make you feel like you’re a part of the story yourself. This is a book that just envelops your entire imagination as you read, with people and places so fully articulated that they seem three-dimensional. I can understand how some readers might have found the level of detail excessive, especially when it came to the technical logging jargon, but I adored every minute of it. I thought it added to the atmosphere of the story in such a tangible way.

”You get a miracle in life, you take it. You don’t ask why.”

The subject matter throughout the story is challenging and often heartbreaking. Davidson expertly explores themes of grief, loss, greed, betrayal, and the ways that communities can destroy themselves with political divisiveness. (And that ending made me want to go back in time and just stop reading when Rich bought the goldfish… I wish I’d never gone beyond that point, and just let the story end there in my mind!)

”If he could jam a wedge in and stop the machine, cogs of time grinding to a halt, he would stop it here: the three of them together, the 24-7 stubborn, proud, and, for now—for another week or two, whatever short time was left—his.”

But, despite all of that, this is hands-down one of the best books I’ll read all year. Damnation Spring is moving, provocative, and laced with all the rawness of humanity. A five-star book and then some!

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A huge thank you to Ash Davidson, Scribner, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Scribner y'all have quickly became one of my top ten favorite publishers.
And I can't thank you enough for this ebook approval.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this novel.
And Author Ash you girl are a force to be reckon with! This debut novel is going to make waves!
I received this ebook after publication date.....

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson is a debut novel.
And one that I will scream and talk about to anyone who will listen to me!
A beautiful story with a narrative that is as beautiful as the setting of the story!
The character development and writing were truly amazing!
This story will speak to everyone's heart!
Can't put into words really..... Just read this book! You'll love it!

An Environmental Book Hugger Manifesto

Set in 1977 in a diminishing redwood forest on the California coast, Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson takes readers on a year-in-the-life journey of the Gundersons, a multi-generational logging family.

As we navigate through each season, we read from multiple perspectives.
Rich Gunderson, husband and father, secretly buys a large piece of land hoping to establish a financially secure future for his small family by selling the timber. His wife Colleen, an unlicensed midwife who has had eight miscarriages herself, has witnessed other women in the community grieve over the loss of their own babies as well. And we even get a glimpse at life from Chub’s perspective, 6 years-old and the youngest member of the Gunderson family, spends his days navigating the forest with his father, learning skills that’s been passed down through the generations.

Rich is hoping his current employer, Sanderson Timber Co., will build the road needed to remove his redwood trees. That same timber company has been using herbicides that just might be the impetus of the increasing number medical issues in the community, and Colleen is hoping to find out the truth.

In a community whose foundation is logging, the harmful effects of long-term deforestation are thoughtfully explored through this narrative. Through the eyes of Rich, Colleen, and Chub, Davidson does a fantastic job showing us both sides of this divisive issue. The ebb and flow of the story has a nice balance of the slow every day minutiae of this rural setting to the propulsive, gut wrenching and cheek drenching tragedies that occur. Certainly there were characters I would consider the “bad guys,” but most members of this small community have a place in my heart.

It’s a book that I hugged and sobbed over, and it left this tree lover girl aching for that small community of hard working loggers.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. I also have a newly purchased copy of it as well.

*4-4.5 stars.

There was a time when we were taught in elementary school that America's natural resources were abundant and unlimited and provided by God for the use and profit of our citizens: forests, oil, coal, water, the very soil itself. In just a few generations, we're becoming all too aware of what that greedy thinking has done to the environment.

Hand in hand with that hubris was the idea of 'better living through chemistry.' Nasty weeds and bugs hindering your crops, your profits, your enjoyment of nature? Spray them!

Ah, but there were unintended consequences. In 1962, biologist Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring, setting off alarms that the widespread use of chemicals like DDT were also endangering species of birds and animals and causing birth defects and tumors in humans. Within 10 years, the Environmental Protection Agency had been formed under Richard Nixon and the use of DDT was illegal in the United States.

But there were other chemicals being used with abandon during that era, such as Agent Orange, an herbicide and defoliant, a mixture of equal parts of two herbicides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, used by the United States government during the Vietnam War from 1961-1971. The effect of that usage on American soldiers and on the people, animals and vegetation of Vietnam are still being felt to this day.

The use of those chemicals and its unintended effects is a central theme in this story about the logging of the giant redwoods in Northern California in the late 70s. The chemical is being used to defoliate the brush and weeds to make it easier to get in and cut down the trees.

The main characters of the story are the Gundersen family. Richard Gundersen is a fourth-generation high-climber working for Lifetime Sanderson Timber Company which employs 58 local residents in its mill and logging operations. A recent mudslide which closed Highway 101 north of Klamath has sparked debate over the timber industry's slash-and-burn policies and tree-huggers are staging protests. Sanderson's current plans are to harvest two old-growth parcels of redwoods known as Damnation Grove but these environmentalists are trying to stop it from going forward. They'd love to see this whole area of ancient redwoods become a protected state park.

Not only might Rich Gundersen lose his logging job, but unbeknownst to his young wife, he has recently purchased acres of bordering property and hopes to use Sanderson's right of way to harvest his own redwood trees. In fact, he has risked everything on those hopes.

But his young wife Colleen is becoming aware of the human costs of how the lumber company operates. She has suffered several miscarriages herself and as a midwife, has documented nearly a dozen cases of abnormalities in babies born in the area over the last six years. She worries that the aerial spraying of herbicides to control weeds may be contaminating local water sources including their own spring-fed drinking water. Above all else, she has their young son Graham to protect.

These worries are tearing the community apart. What is more important--your livelihood or your family's health? Rich and Colleen are on opposite sides of these issues but will they be able to continue to love and support each other regardless?

The scene and characters are well described by this debut author but the story does gets bogged down early on by perhaps too much descriptive writing and a few too many characters. Hang in there though--the central conflict soon takes the stage and has you quickly turning pages to see how this will be resolved. This was very close to a 5-star read for me.

I received an arc of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I will definitely look forward to reading more from this fine writer.

Atmospheric and compelling! Damnation Spring is told in a plain, rugged fashion that mirrors the struggling inhabitants of this California logging community and has me longing to visit the ancient greenery of the Pacific Northwest.

Oh, Ash Davidson . . . you’re killin' me, Smalls! This novel is as real as fiction gets folks. Get ready to be hit with a full array of emotions. I mean ALL the feels. It even has a few annoying repetitive human quirks, such is life, the goings-on in the routine of a small family attempting to carve out a full and meaningful life in between the mighty trees.

Unlike some other reviewers, I did not mind the use of local timber industry terminology and slang, I like being immersed in a way of life that is foreign to me, to walk in another's shoes and get a strong understanding of their plight.

I could definitely feel the frustrations of these people who were caught making super hard choices . . . keep your job? Save your community? preserve your heritage? protect the land and the people you love? feed your family? build a future? All separate, yet all intertwined like the massive root systems of the majestic Redwood trees standing so very high above them.

I'd like to thank the author, NetGalley, and Scribner for allowing me to read a copy of Damnation Spring for an honest review. 5 stars.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Scribner Publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is story that I thought I would really enjoy but as I started reading it I got lost in the wordiness of it all. Somehow it took over the story and I was just lost. I would put the book down and when I picked it up again it was the same thing. I know there is a wonderful story in here somewhere but I just could not wade through the descriptions and logging terminology to get to the meat of the story. New characters kept coming and it was hard to keep them straight. I finally gave up half way through. As much as I hate to say it, sorry this one is just not for me.

This book broke my heart several times over and then put it back together. It's a love letter to the environment as well as a family drama; addressing pregnancy losses, marriage and relationships. Damnation Springs is an incredibly powerful and moving book - quite possibly one the most moving I've read so far this year. While some parts were a bit slow, I couldn't put the book down.

I really struggled through this one. The story itself I think could have been really wonderful, but the writing was disjointed and for me personally the amount of technical things about logging was too much.

I struggled with this one. The Book gets bogged down with all of the logging terminology. I never connected with the plot or the characters and found the ending very unsatisfying. I would skip this one.

I can definitely see why this was a book of the month pick. The story was SO entertaining! Such a good read.