Claire Boyles at Explore Books: Appraisals

Financial and ecological realities tear at the heart of a multigenerational farm family in this debut novel from a “deft and daring” (Los Angeles Times) Whiting Award winner.

Maggie Brandt, a third-generation farmer, is cultivating a few acres of organic vegetables in rural Colorado—a place where industrial farming reigns supreme—when the Great Recession hits. After months of unemployment, her husband, Fish, takes a job with an oil and gas company, a decision that threatens their once happy marriage and alienates their teenage daughter, Ozzie, a budding environmental crusader. As the wider community organizes against a billionaire outsider who is buying farmland and, more worryingly, water rights in the moisture-starved county, Maggie’s grandmother Flora grapples with the painful echoes of her own past. Flora and Ozzie’s already close bond deepens as they join a local activist group, but Fish and Maggie’s conflicting approaches to surviving circumstances that are out of their control drive them further apart. Faced with intolerable layers of loss, each member of the family is forced to consider what they are willing to compromise and what they are, or are not, able to forgive.

At once tender and urgent, Appraisals is a moving portrayal of ecological and financial catastrophe, the powerful generational bonds between women, and the fierce impulse to protect the places we love.

Claire Boyles is a writer, teacher, and former sustainable farmer in northern Colorado. A Whiting Award winner, her debut story collection, Site Fidelity, won the High Plains Book Award and was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award.

Rita Mary Hennigan is an advocate for food systems that contribute to the health of both people and the environment. She is the Executive Director of UpRoot Colorado, a nonprofit organization that uses gleaning as a tool to reduce agricultural food loss, increase nutrition security, and educate people about and connect them with local food systems. Rita holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Wellesley College and was a Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Fellow in 2023.

Harper Kaufman is the founder of Two Roots Farm, a regenerative vegetable, flower, and herb farm in Basalt, Colorado established in 2016. A Colorado native, Harper discovered a passion for farming while studying at the University of Montana and went on to work on farms in California, Montana, and at ACES Rock Bottom Ranch before starting her own farm business. Harper is passionate about strengthening local food systems and believes small-scale regenerative agriculture is essential to a healthy and resilient future. Two Roots is proud to host a thriving community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, on-site farm stand, restaurant sales, and partnerships with Lift-Up. We use organic growing practices, minumum tillage, compost, crop totations, increased biodiversity, and sustainable methods to grow the best produce possible without the use of any chemicals, herbicides, or pesticides.