The Soured Earth by Sophie Weeks Giveaway and Guest Post

About the Book

Title: The Soured Earth

Author: Sophie Weeks

Genre: YA/NA

When Margaret Campbell left her home, a working ranch in the Canada prairies, for the East coast and college, she never meant to come back. In the aftermath of a tragic accident that claimed the lives of her aunt and uncle, however, Margaret is called home to help. There she must assume a much less glamorous role as chef, gardener, and mother figure for her orphaned cousins.

But when a strange sickness strikes their cattle and blights their crops, Margaret’s family is threatened with the loss of their ranch and only livelihood. Now caught in the middle of a full-scale environmental disaster, Margaret finds herself divided between duty to home and family and the fashion designer career she’s still struggling to build.

Author Bio

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Sophie Weeks received a Masters degree in English Literature from Mills College in 2006 and completed her PhD in Victorian Literature at Rice University in 2013. Sophie resides in Payson, Arizona with three furry miscreants, who are wanted in multiple states for criminal adorableness. She is also the author of Outside the Spotlight and Unsettled Spirits.

Guest Post

Family Values for an Imperfect World

            I have eight cousins who are younger than I am and one who is older.  Growing up as an only child, my cousins provided the only kind of generational peer group that I had.  Two of my cousins I am destined to never know well, but the rest were friends in childhood and intermittent associates in later life, the recurring “stock company” at weddings and funerals. 

            But when I was in my early twenties, I was very close with six of my cousins.  And when my aunt was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer during that period, I tried to step in and help.  I stayed at my aunt's house and did my best to keep the family more or less functioning.  My younger cousins, who were around middle grade age, were displaying a lot of behavioral problems from the stress of their mother's illness, which continued through her eventual death.  I was in college at the time, earning my undergraduate degree, and while I stayed with the family (no more than a week before my grandmother came up to help), I was overwhelmed with stress so acute that I often felt as though I were being physically choked.  Their father's time was divided between his job and his wife's hospital room; I was having to handle the basic mechanics of feeding and cleaning up after a large family with no prior experience, all the while sharing a room with my teenaged cousins!

            I'd like to say I provided a kind of Mary Poppins of the suburbs, but the truth is that I could not connect with my younger cousins and allowed myself to be drawn into horrible, soul-crushing conflicts on basic matters of discipline.  I absolutely couldn't win, and I didn't—when my grandmother came down to take over, I gladly handed the whole shebang over to her and fled.  My sensitive only-child nerves couldn't take any longer in that chaotic environment.  In The Soured Earth, I write about a young woman, Margaret, who is drawn into just such a family crisis when she returns to the prairies of Alberta.  At twenty-five, Margaret is still in the liminal stage of young adulthood: her strongest ties are to her father and the grandmother who raised her, as well as a pair of orphaned cousins who need her support.  She faces a full range of adult challenges from reining in a sexting teen to bailing her father out of jail after a bar fight. Throughout the novel, she wrestles with her obligations and ambitions even as the rural community struggles with a mysterious blight that falls on the land. 

            We often underestimate how much work of childrearing falls, not on parents, but through tragedy or neglect onto grandparents, older siblings, cousins, step parents, aunts, and uncles.  I think it's important to celebrate these people who find themselves stepping into roles that they didn't choose for themselves, but take on consciously and responsibly.  Historically, a lot of this work has fallen on women, but in modern society we see amazing men who often step up to provide this duty of care as well.  When we talk about family, it's important to remember those whose commitment to their families transcends basic parental obligation and provides stability to the vulnerable. 

Links 

Website: http://sophieweeks.net/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SophieWeeksAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/torncashmere
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/torncashmere/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7007803.Sophie_Weeks

Buy a copy of “The Soured Earth”:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Soured-Earth-Sophie-Weeks-ebook/dp/B00H3KTMCW/
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-soured-earth-sophie-weeks/1117555168
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-soured-earth/id785506771?mt=11

Giveaway

There is a tour-wide giveaway for a one month gift subscription to Conscious Box, a curated collection of healthy and ethical home, beauty, and food products sent right to your door. Choose between gluten-free, classic, and vegan options.

Participate in the giveaway here: 

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