The Heirloom Seed Courtship
A 1920s Iowa Romance

About this book:

In the humid heat of a 1924 Iowa summer, Thomas Vance steps off the train with a leather case full of heirloom seeds and a salesman's grin, only to meet his match in Clara Sterling. She’s the sharp-tongued, ink-stained widow running the county’s agricultural gazette, and she has zero tolerance for peddlers pushing "miracle" crops that rot in the field. But Thomas isn't selling hype—he's selling history, preserved in glassine envelopes: *Brandywine*, *Cherokee Purple*, *German Johnson*. When a bargain is struck over a dozen fragile tomato starts planted in Clara’s backyard, a partnership takes root that neither expected, binding the fate of a struggling press to the promise of a rare harvest.

As the season turns from planting to blistering harvest, the rows between them blur. Thomas proves he knows the weight of black loam as well as the weight of a promise, and Clara discovers the printer’s precision she applies to type can nurture something far more unpredictable than ink on paper. But drought, blight, and the looming shadow of corporate agriculture threaten more than their crop. With a catalog deadline looming and a traveling trunk packed with more than just seeds, they must decide if they are merely cross-pollinating for a season—or cultivating a love hardy enough to survive the first hard frost.

Rich with the scent of turned earth, hot lead type, and vine-ripened tomatoes, *The Heirloom Seed Courtship* is a tender, slow-burn historical romance about two guardians of quality in a world rushing toward quantity. For readers who love competent heroines, honorable heroes, and the quiet thrill of watching something rare and beautiful grow against the odds.