HARVEST THE WIND

Virginia Franconi left home at eighteen, like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels. Now, in her mid-twenties, she returns to the family farm in Idaho. Her sour, belligerent father, once an iron-fisted ruler, is weak and frail, no longer a threat. Marc, Virginia’s brother, runs the farm. Virginia is pregnant, a secret she doesn’t initially share with Marc or her father. With most young men off fighting the war in Europe or the Pacific, Marc worries who will help grow the food demanded by a hungry nation. When President Roosevelt orders all people of Japanese descent removed from the West Coast, Keiko Ugawa and her family find themselves in a crowded, tar-papered barrack, surrounded by barbed-wire and guard towers, where temperatures reach 130F in summer and minus 30F in winter. Dust and wind are constants. Her mother dies and Keiko’s anger at authorities intensifies. Marc’s worries about who will help him are solved when the government allows internees from nearby Camp Minidoka to work on surrounding farms. A saddened and still angry Keiko comes to the Franconi farm, along with several young men. While Keiko works in the house with Virginia, now approaching her due date, the young men join Marc in the fields. Keiko helps deliver Virginia’s baby. The two women gradually become friends.

Series: Toni Morgan Trilogy

Paperback: 324 pages
Publishing date: April 27, 2018
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1732074208
ISBN-13: 978-1732074200
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches

Toni Morgan came home to Oregon from a summer as an exchange student in Denmark knowing two things: she loved history, and she loved traveling and meeting new people.  Her parents collected early-American antiques. By their measure, anything over 75 years of age qualified.  The house of Toni’s host family in Denmark was 400-years-old, and the church where her host-father preached was 800-years-old. She saw where battles had been fought and where Danes had lived ten centuries before she was born. It was a revelation. Her writing career began with that trip, keeping the editor of her hometown paper apprised of all she saw.  A former NYT editor, he convinced her that she should continue writing.  Although a west-coaster by birth, marriage, and preference, Toni has lived in many places, including nearly four years in Japan. That rich experience led her to write Echoes from a Falling Bridge, Harvest the Wind and Lotus Blossom Unfurling.  (http://tonimorganbooks.com)