Growing Season Series

Downsized from her stellar career at a big-city ad agency, Melinda is already at a crossroads when a phone call brings her back to her rural roots. It’s not long before she moves to the country, takes on a rundown farm and its headstrong animals, and lands behind the counter of her family’s hardware store in the community of Prosper, whose motto is "The Great Little Town That Didn’t."

As late summer fades into fall, Melinda's efforts at her rented farmhouse are starting to bear fruit. She's learned to preserve produce, outsmart some stubborn chickens, and wrangle a flock of spoiled sheep. She revels in the peace she's found in the country, where time is marked by morning-fresh eggs and stunning sunsets. But even in the small town of Prosper, nothing stays the same. One member of the hardware store's coffee group shares a startling announcement, and a trip back to the city makes Melinda realize how deep her roots run in rural Iowa.

In the little town of Prosper, the holidays are merry and bright! As a reflective hush falls over the harvested fields surrounding her farm, Melinda packs away her memories of city life and turns her thoughts toward Thanksgiving and Christmas. She's not only home for the holidays, but truly home at last. She has a list of projects that will make the season perfect, and she's checked it more than twice: Insulate her acreage and animals against the coming winter, fill her farmhouse with festive decorations, and plan the perfect menu for her family's Christmas dinner

Melinda expects to spend January lounging by her farmhouse's fireplace, paging through the seed catalogs' promises of spring. After all, the slower pace of rural life was one of the reasons she'd left the city behind. Instead, she must face her fears when the worst of winter's threats arrive at her door. Braving blizzards to care for her animals, thawing her acreage's water lines, and anxiously watching over the pregnant sheep in her barn fill her shorter days and longer nights. She trudges on because Horace's offer stands firm: He'll sell her the farm in the spring if she still wants to stay.