Today’s Guest: Cynthia Kraack, speculative fiction author, Ashwood trilogy: Ashwood, Harvesting Ashwood and Leaving Ashwood.
Mr. Media is recorded live before a studio audience of ambitious, future agricultural estate mistresses… in the new new media capitol of the world… St. Petersburg, Florida!
![Ashwood by Cynthia Kraack Ashwood by Cynthia Kraack](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ztmiDFiYL.jpg)
Visions of the future tend not to be too hopeful. And I, being a generally optimistic, positive thinking fellow, don’t often go down rabbit holes that lead to nattering nabobs of negativity. I encounter enough of it in the normal course of daily business — why look for trouble?
But I got sucked into Cynthia Kraack’s new small press novel, Ashwood.
It tells the story of Matron Anne, the new administrator of an Ashwood, Minnesota, agricultural plantation — worked and maintained largely by children — some time in the not-too-distant future. In Matron Anne’s era, danger lurks everywhere in America, from the cities to the rural farming communities. She’s a young woman whose life has already been hard; when she begins telling us her tale, she has no idea the challenges and dangers that lie ahead of her.
![Minnesota Cold by Cynthia Kraack Minnesota Cold by Cynthia Kraack](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XTkL6tgYL._SL160_.jpg)
CYNTHIA KRAACK podcast excerpt: “People are trying to rebuild personal safety and how you rebuild your dreams. And how do you trust a government built out of people who are not always honest and not always operating for the common good.”
Ashwood offers a touch of speculative fiction, economics forecasting and a bit of science fiction. It would make a brilliant, edgy movie in the right hands.
If you’re looking for a story with a strong female lead, look no farther. If you’re looking for a tale in which people come together and overcome evil for a common good, this is a reading commitment you won’t regret.
Cynthia Kraack Website • Blog • Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Order Ashwood
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Part 3 of 3
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