The Seed Woman by author Petra Durst-Benning is a saga based on the seed traders of 1859 Switzerland ...

The Seed Woman by author Petra Durst-Benning is a historical fiction based on the seed traders of Switzerland in 1849. It opens with the scene of Friedhelm Schwarz, a seed trader after he has won big at a game of cards in a tavern. He knows it is time to start home to his village of Gonningen located at the foot of the Swabian Mountains in Switzerland. Friedhelm has a wife and daughter at home hoping he will be home before Christmas. Seraphine is his beautiful daughter who is very talented with her paints, dreamy prose, and her needle. She is preparing for her upcoming wedding to Helmut Kerner, a son of one of the richest men in the village. She often talks to her Star Fairy and makes up fanciful stories of how she came to be living with such a poor family. Her mother Ilse is disillusioned with Friedhelm and his gambling and drinking away the profits of their work.
The next scene opens with Hannah, a traveler from Nuremberg who has come to the village of Gonningen to find Helmut Kerner. She must find him and let him know he is the father of her unborn child. When she checks in to The Sun to stay for a few nights while she seeks for Helmut, she hears talk of Helmut Kerners soon marriage to Seraphine in three weeks. Hannah panics and resolves to find and convince Helmut to marry her as soon as possible.

The saga of these hard-working people and their daily lives is filled with emotional turbulence. The conflicts of Hannah and Seraphine is like a strange tug-of-war over the affections of Helmut. The reader will hurt for the other Kerner brother, Valentin as he is so ill treated by Seraphine.
There is a lot of emotional day-to-day interaction in this story which is all very good. For me the ending only hinted at closure. It was a bit disappointing because it did not clearly resolve an integral decision between Valentin and Seraphine, and Margarita.