The Olson Journey

With her husband freshly buried, Karoline Olsen now shoulders the twin burdens of raising her large brood of children, including the one she carries in her belly, and managing a difficult farm life by herself in the Loess Hills. Spanning 1905 to 1933, the second installment of the Olsen series brings major world events—WWI, the Spanish Flu, Prohibition, Suffrage, and the Great Depression—to Iowa, impacting the lives of the Soldier inhabitants, including the Olsens.  

Karoline struggles to keep her children safe and close to their Norwegian roots in the face of pressure to remarry again. She can only watch as one by one her adult children are forced to endure the difficult choices in life, love, marriage, and business, leaving each of them with scars that may never heal. The Lunatic, the Gambler, the Whore, the Teacher, the Entrepreneur, and the Farmer are all titles affixed to these once-innocent children of Kristoffer and Karoline Olsen.

A continuing chronicle of the Olsen family’s survival, Sons and Daughters is the tale of a widowed woman fighting to preserve a legacy, carve her own path amid tragedy and historic hardship, and guide six first-generation American children who are discovering their own identities in a rapidly changing world.

Ann Hanigan Kotz’s second novel of love, loss, violence, and identity once again connects her own family’s ancestors with a vision from the past.