A Violet Season A Novel

A mother's choices in a time of crisis threaten the one person she means to protecther only daughterand force her to make the boldest move of her life. The violet industry is booming in 1898, and a Hudson Valley farm owned by the Fletcher family is turning a generous profit for its two oldest brothers. But Ida Fletcher, married to the black sheep youngest brother, has taken up wet nursing to help pay the bills, and her daughter, Alice, has left school to work. As they risk losing their share of the farm, the two women make increasingly great sacrifices for their family's survival, sacrifices that will set them against one another in a lifelong struggle for honesty and forgiveness. Vivid and compelling, A Violet Season is the story of an unforgettable mother-daughter journey in a time when women were just waking to their own power and independence.

Kathy Leonard Czepiel’s short fiction has been published in numerous journals, including Indiana Review, CALYX, Confrontation, and The Pinch. She is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and teaches writing at Quinnipiac University. A native of New York State’s mid-Hudson Valley, she now lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children.