I was interested in reading this book as it takes place in North Dakota, with some mentions of Minnesota (my home state), as the author seeks to learn more about her great-grandmother, Anna, who was confined to an asylum after likely postpartum depression and left her descendants mineral rights on the lands that she had homesteaded. Erika Bolstad is a journalist, so she was able to piece together a story of her ancestor's life as a pioneer woman through newspaper records, birth/death announcements and medical histories. While examining her great-grandmother's experiences, she also examines how women were treated during that time by the men who sought to control their thoughts, land and finances. Erika flashes forward and backward, researching how the mineral/oil rights and homesteading started while contrasting what was happening with the recent North Dakota oil boom. She explores how the search for riches affected the environment, the native people and animals and the global consequences through climate change. She also reveals what she was personally going through during this 8 year research process, as her mom died, her dad needed assistance and she and her husband struggled with infertility. It was a fascinating story of road trips, the beauty of nature, family, resilience, history, and science. The narrator had a beautifully expressive voice, making it feel like we were friends sitting around the campfire, hearing of her adventures in the west/midwest.

This book took me back to a time before Emmerson was born and I had spent some time in Weyburn Sask which is near the USA border into North Dakota. I spent time in these same towns/cities as the story took place during an Oil Boom. This Oil Boom was coming to an end during the time I was there.

I would go to Minot to the mall or I had to laugh how Erika visited Walmart at Williston, I also did a few trips to stock up on things you can’t find in Canada. I found it interesting how at Walmart there would be vehicles with license plates from all different Provinces and States. I was surprised to hear the Williston Walmart is one of the busiest in the USA and pays the highest wage of Walmarts.

During Erika’s time in North Dakota she spoke of her and her husband going thru Infertility. I was also dealing with Infertility during the time I was traveling to this area. We had seen the IVF Clinic and we’re deciding what next steps were.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for a chance to read and review this audio book. Book started off a little low and repetitive but ended up really informative. It was interesting reading about the Homestead Act, life in North Dakota and how many Americas are descendants of the original homesteaders.

Beautiful story. A strong and enduring woman living in one hell of a time in this country. Beautifully written and narrated. Didn’t take long to listen and was overall an enjoyable experience. Looking forward to more from the author.

This was an intriguing book. Bolstad begins with the premise of exploring her great grandmother's mineral rights claim as a homesteader and her history and then turns it into a wide-ranging family saga from her own fertility battle back through generations to her great grandparents to a treatise on fracking and the energy industry and the various people involved in it. I really liked that Anna was mentioned in every chapter, tying the various pieces of the story back to the subject at the beginning of her hunt and tying the narrative together. This being said, there was a lot packed into this book to have to tie together and at some points it didn't tie very well. While I liked reading the ebook a bit more than listening to the audio since there were so many people to keep up with, the narrator did a great job of adding some emotion to the factual nature of the book. Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the early read in exchange for my honest opinion.

I have a bad habit of requesting books that are set to archive a few days later. This is one of those cases. I did not get it downloaded before the archive date.

I am a huge fan of Dreamscape and their work so I'm sure this one is great.

Climate change journalist in search of great grandmother's background; the author couldn't find any of her typically sources to fund her research so she spent 8 years writing Windfall. Mixing in attempts to conceive and random info on North Dakota history and stops along the way.

Like most journalists, they are determined to bash republicans. (News flash, 76% of people in ND are republican or lean republican. So noting that every male politician in ND is republican is rather pointless.)

In search of her story, the author Erika Bolstad repeatedly asks folks about how they feel about climate change and what changes they are going to make in the face of climate change. The author never answers that question herself, even at the end where there is Q&A with the author. (Yes.
Climate change is "bad", but what do we do about it?) Evidently the author is exempt from the question, she is constantly driving to/from ND at the drop of a hat for her research and when she isn't driving to ND, she is flying (and notes the changes to the airport over the years).

Once she realizes that the mineral/oil rights to the property are really never going to amount to much, then (and only then) she decides that she will return these rights to those who really should have the rights ... the native Indian tribes that owned the property before her great grandmother. (Partially because it would be more difficult for potential oil/mineral drilling operations to proceed.) But she needs to also convince 10+ distant cousins to also agree; like that is going to happen.

The author describes how oil companies burn off waste. Brining for example is mentioned, but I really don't recall exactly what brining is or why it is bad.

Hearing about Medora, ND and their Musical shows sounded interesting and I'll make a note to look into that when we visit ND next.

I wanted to like Windfall. We love being out West and were considering buying property in the Dakotas. But at 10+ hours, Windfall left a "why did I invest so much time with this one" taste in my mouth.

On a positive note, the narrator Marni Penning did a very good job. There weren't multiple voices or anything, since it is pretty much a memoir from the author.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review Windfall in exchange for an honest review.

This book was on my Audible wishlist. Thank goodness I had the opportunity for an ARC and did not pay for it. I went into “Windfall” expecting to learn about Anna, her life as a homesteader, and what happened to her after she was institutionalized. Instead I suffered through over 10 hours of a book about climate change, politics, infertility, life along the Mississippi, the economy, and how all of this affected the writer and her family. The only information about Anna that was not in the publishers summary of the book is a few notes from her medical records.

While politics is a topic of interest for me I do not want it in a book that is supposed to be about a prairie woman. I do have sympathy for the author’s fertility struggles, but again it is completely unrelated to the book’s supposed topic. It was very obvious that Ms. Bolstad did not spend much time along the river. The way she wrote about the communities (especially Black communities) in those areas was slightly derogatory.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape
Media for the ARC. All opinions expressed in the review are my own.

Intersting Memoir ,Erika is a journalist , looking into her familys history , particuly one that involves Anna , woman who was a homesteaer and was put in a asylum , listenig on audio , the narrotor keeps the reade intrigued .Mineral rights , womens rights , Oli industry , lots of information , fascinating really .I also commend the author for writing aboout her own persinal journey with trying to have a baby while she was learning about her history .

Windfall: The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great Granddaughter Who Found Her
Erika Bolstad
A check arrived in the mail for over $2000. The family did not own the land in North Dakota, but they retained ownership of the mineral rights under the land. The land originally belonged to Anna, Erika’s great-grandmother. Erika’s mother died leaving behind a mountain of medical debts. The check didn’t make a dent in the bills. However, oil companies were interested in what lay under the soil. This could be the answer to the family’s prayers.
Erika was/is a journalist who wanted to know more about her great-grandmother and set out on a journey to discover what happened to Anna. In the early 1900s Anna was a homesteader (under the Homestead Act) then her husband had her committed to an asylum. She was a young woman imprisoned for the rest of her life. Anna left very few photographs and no written words. Erika and her husband Chris set out for North Dakota to discover her great-grandmother and the facts behind her.
Anna owned 160 acres of land in North Dakota. On December 13th, 1905, she married Andrew Haraseth. She and her husband began life together; they built a small house and barn and had a baby boy, Ed. Within a few months Andrew had her committed to an insane asylum. She was possibly suffering from post-natal depression. Anna had no rights, she lived at her husband’s mercy. North Dakota in the early 1900s was a harsh place to live. The people faced droughts, diseases, pestilences, epidemics, the extreme cold, and seclusion. Farming was a chancy enterprise. Anna’s son, Ed inherited her land. Anna’s land is rich with oil and Erika is one of the heirs to the mineral rights.
Author Erika Bolstad spent eight years exploring, roving, speaking to experts about the oil industry and links the info to her family’s tale. She wanted to know about her great-grandmother, about whether the mineral rights were worth pursuing and what the effect oil drilling would have on the land, environment, the people and society. She begins each chapter with the price of oil in North Dakota showing the ups and downs of the business and the consequence it has on the communities connected to it. Someone was getting rich but it wasn’t the working man. Erika discovers the oil business is a male comminated business and a political one as well. Everything centers around finding and producing oil, building roads and schools but what about the long-term effects?
This is a sad story but one that needs to be told.. My heart aches for Anna who lived in an era where she had few rights and the mental health system was practically non-existent.

It’s pretty amazing how someone not from North Dakota has us perfectly clocked. I live in North Dakota so I was intrigued by the description of this book, however I did feel like at times this book was more about the authors infertility than it was about her grandmother. I wanted more about her grandmother.

But as I said the author has ND politics figured out pretty well and how the oil companies in ND are Gods and can do no wrong. I was glad she went into some of the ways they are destroying our state and about climate change she was very knowledgeable.

I found this book good and interesting if a bit slow at times.

Narrator Marnie Penning does a good job.

I still think this would make a good book club book for North Dakota Libraries especially.

3 stars

I received this book from the publisher Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for a fair and honest review.

This book is okay. I prefer something that is a little more faster pace, more excitement and keeps not wanting to put the book down once I start reading it. There are some people that would enjoy a slower pace book and I would recommend it for them.

Idk, man. Give me a memoir about the North Dakota oil fields and I'm there.

The narrator was strong but at times seemed to earnest. Like she was overacting. But I got used to it and generally enjoyed the listening experience.

In an author interview at the end of the book, I discovered Bolstad and I share a very similar reading taste. RIYL Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sarah Smarsh, and Terry Tempest Williams

I really enjoyed the narrator in this memoir they did an exacerbate job, it was an interesting narrative to read and listen to and it was interesting to learn of all the occurred

Sadly I couldn't get into this one. it was a little slow. While I found the synopsis to be extremely interesting the book itself seemed too dry. I was expecting more of a journey and not so much information that kept making me zone out. I hope it was just a miss thing and that others will enjoy this story..

I picked up this book because I was intrigued by the story of the author's great-grandmother, and the subtitle and description make it sound like the story is mainly about her. It is actually a pretty even split between the great-grandmother's story, the story of the author's struggle with infertility, and the history and present state of the oil industry in the American West. I had to switch to the reading the book because the narrator was overly dramatic in reading. 3 stars for the book, 2 stars for the audiobook.

*I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this opportunity.*

WINDFALL by Erika Bolstad is many things. It is an investigation into the North Dakota oil industry, an observation of the historic 2008 Bakken oil boom and it's inevitable downfall, commentary on climate change and it's relationship to oil/natural gas use, a heartbreaking narrative about a woman's struggle with IVF, and the story of a family's hope for a windfall through several generations. This story is not about a woman living on her homestead or an adult version of Little House on the Prairie.

However, that doesn't mean that Anna and her story is merely a means to pull readers in. Anna's short journey provides a beautiful and grounding connection to all of the topics Bolstad writes about. While Anna spent a limited amount of time with her family on the frontier-- she was committed to an asylum shortly after the birth of her only child most likely due to postpartum depression or psychosis-- the impact her story has on Bolstad and her family lasts at least three generations.

Almost considered family lore, Bolstad originally set out to discover more about Anna and instead began unraveling the complicated truth behind mineral rights and the affects of the oil industry in North Dakota. Bolstad is a highly skilled and talented journalist, which easily carries over to this much more personal book through her meticulous research and thorough investigations. She truly leaves no stone unturned, and somehow always manages to bring the story back to Anna and her land.

WINDFALL is the rare type of book that continues to get better long after you've read it. It was a joy to experience, and I am certain that almost everyone will find some part of this book to love.

What a fascinating story about Erika Bolstad, an investigative journalist and her quest to look into her family history, her great-grandmother, and her mineral rights in the plains of North Dakota. Along the way you hear about her ancestry, her heartbreaking struggles with infertility, and the booms and busts that fossils fuels have had for the state of North Dakota. She had to go back and forth between her beliefs about the negative effects of dilling for fossil fuels on both the environment and the communities that surround this area with the potential for monetary gain from the mineral rights from the land.

Erika also looks into Anna's (her great grandmother) story and how she disappeared after having a baby. You learn how she was banished to an asylum by her husband after giving birth and struggling with post-partum depression.

Part memoir, part historical non-fiction I recommend this one! Thanks to @netgally and Dreascape Media for the audiobook version of this book.

WINDFALL is an intriguing history of Erika Bolstad's family. When Erika discovers information about her great-grandmother's (Anna) homestead in the prairies of North Dakota, she goes on a personal journey to find information about the land for which she and her family have learned they still own the mineral rights.
As a journalist, Bolstad has a unique way of researching the data needed to learn more about this land. As she is exploring the historical documents, she discovers how her grandmother was institutionalized soon after giving birth to her last child. Little else is known about Anna, however, the land is referred to as "Anna's land". Her legacy is prominent in the telling of her story by her great-granddaughter.

The telling of the story alternates between the writer's current life: her desire to start a family and the many trips she makes to North Dakota to learn about mineral rights and what it means to "own" them. Through the minuscule checks her family receives, her family feels they could be rich one day. As Bolstad learns more about the rights, she discovers how the fracking industry affects global warming.

The audiobook narrator was enjoyable to listen to and easily understood throughout. She narrated the book as if she were Ms. Bolstad telling her own story she was so convincing.

I finished this late last night and needed time to try and write a review. Apparently, I didn't take enough time [this book gave me massive book hangover and I am still feeling the effects of what I read/listened to] as I am still struggling. As there are plenty of excellent reviews out there, I will just try and sum up how this book made me feel.

First, I wasn't sure what to really expect; was this going to be like a modern Little House on the Prairie? Was it going to break open the world of homesteading [something that has intrigued me since my introduction into said Little House books] and give me more information [Not really unfortunately]? Or was it going to be some sappy memoir that would just make me roll my eyes [thankfully, this was not the case. Not one eye-roll to be found].

So, what did I get?

An absolutely gorgeous story about family. And loss [both in death and by Alzheimer's <--these parts, at the end of the book, were extremely difficult for me to listen to. Life is about to get super hard here and this was just a reminder of what is to come and while my heart was breaking for the author, it was also breaking for myself and my family]. And hopes and dreams and the loss of those [Y'all. There was some seriously UGLY crying at times in this book. I mean the kind of ugly crying that makes it hard to breathe and left me not only with a hideous headache but bereft all over again from the very personal hopes and dreams that were also dashed in my life. I felt her pain like it was my very own and now that it has been brought up all over again, I am NOT quite sure how to deal with it].

And this book [while filled with information about drilling and oil and mineral rights and fracking {I was glad to learn a little more about that as I knew the word, but not what it really was} that was both informative AND so so so confusing] was truly a labor of love to Anna, the great-grandmother who defied tradition and homesteaded and in turn, due to something beyond her very control, was paid back by being put in an Asylum to die alone. The author learns as much as she can about the woman who did so much and some of the women who came before her and learns just where the strength both she and her sister have came from. It was a fantastic read that I could barely put down, thought about when I DID put it down and will think about for many days ahead.

I was lucky enough to get an audiobook for this read and wow. just wow. The narrator did an excellent job narrating the whole book, but the sections that were particularly heartbreaking, you'd have thought it was the narrators personal experience [and perhaps it was] and the way she reads these sections, all the emotion and heartbreak in her voice...well, I can only say that I would have cried if I had been read reading it, but the ugly crying that I experienced came simply from both the story and how it was delivered. You feel all the feels you are supposed to and there is no higher compliment you can give an audiobook narrator.

Thank you to NetGalley, Erika Bolstad, Marni Penning - Narrator, SOURCEBOOKS [nonfiction], and Dreamscape Media for providing both the ARC and the audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.