When a flood uncovers a 1940 bank bag in the library basement, Link Lake must decide what—and who—it’s willing to save.

In A Village Looks Ahead, a small Wisconsin town wrestles with change as two efforts collide: a library writing class unearths the community’s buried past while the mayor’s Planning Commission pushes boldly toward self-reliance—food, power, and a future by design.

Old mysteries resurface (including that long-whispered 1940 robbery), and new pressures mount: WLLK—“The Voice of Reason”—fans debate on the airwaves, a recall election splits neighbors, and a tornado drives families into the library’s storm shelter.

Through it all, librarian Jackie Jo Jensen and Mayor Jon Jessup ask a defining question: Can a place honor what it was while becoming what it needs to be? As one townsman says, “When we forget our histories, we forget who we are.”

A warm, timely novel of memory, grit, and the everyday heroism of a community choosing its next chapter.

Civil War secrets, small-town intrigue, and the land’s quiet miracles—woven across generations in Wisconsin.

Silas Starkweather, a Civil War veteran, is drawn to Wisconsin and homesteads 160 acres in Ames County, where he is known as the mysterious farmer forever digging holes. After years of hardship and toil, however, Silas develops a commitment to farming his land and respect for his new community. When Silas’s son, Abe, inherits Blue Shadows Farm, he chooses to keep the land out of reluctant necessity, distilling and distributing purified corn water throughout Prohibition and the Great Depression in order to stay solvent. Abe’s daughter, Emma, willingly takes over the farm after her mother’s death. Emma’s love for this place inspires her to open the farm to schoolchildren and families who share her respect for it. As she considers selling the land, Emma is confronted with a difficult question, who, through thick and thin, will care for Blue Shadows Farm as her family has done for over a century? In the midst of a controversy that disrupts the entire community, Emma looks into her family’s past to help her make crucial decisions about the future of its land.

Through the story of the Starkweather family’s changing fortunes, and each generation’s very different relationship with the farm and the land, Blue Shadows Farm is in some ways the narrative of all farmers and the increasingly difficult challenges they face as committed stewards of the land.

When storms rage and freedoms vanish, a band of Wisconsin rebels proves it’s never too late to fight for truth.

Since the Eagle Party took power in the United States, all schools and public utilities have been privatized, churches and libraries closed, and independent news media shut down. Drones buzz overhead in constant surveillance of the populace, and the open internet has been replaced by the network of the New Society Corporation. Environmental degradation and unchecked climate change have brought raging wildfires to the Western states and disastrous flooding to Eastern coastal regions. In the Midwest, a massive storm sends Lake Michigan surging over the Door County peninsula, and thousands of refugees flee inland. In the midst of this apocalypse, a resourceful band of Wisconsin sixty-somethings calling themselves the Oldsters lays secret plans to fight the ruling regime’s propaganda and show people how to think for themselves.

In a small Wisconsin county, a miracle chemical promises health and prosperity—until its dark side threatens the very farmers and families it was meant to save.

The fourth novel in Jerry Apps’ Ames County series, Cranberry Red brings the story into the present, portraying the challenges of agriculture in the twenty-first century.

As the novel opens, Ben Wesley has lost his job as agricultural agent for Ames County. He is soon hired as a research application specialist for Osborne University, a for-profit institution that has developed “Cranberry Red,” a new chemical that promises not only to improve cranberry crop yields but also to endow the fruits with the power to prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer’s disease. Ben must promote the new product to cranberry growers in Ames County and beyond, but he worries whether the promised results are credible. Was Cranberry Red rushed to market?

When the chemical does all that the university claims it will do, Ben is relieved … until disturbing side effects emerge. Can he criticize Cranberry Red and safeguard farmers and consumers without losing his job, or will Ben’s honesty get him fired while his community continues to get sicker?

In 1955 Wisconsin, the cucumbers aren’t the only things under pressure.

Andy Meyer is a young farmer with one foot in the family field and the other in a fermenting vat of trouble. By day, he manages the local pickle factory in the small town of Link Lake, where summer days stretch long, the gossip flows easy, and cucumbers are a way of life. But when the powerful H. H. Harlow Pickle Company rolls into town, threatening to uproot generations of family farms with cutthroat contracts and corporate control, Andy finds himself stuck in a briny moral dilemma.

Caught between his paycheck and his principles, Andy must decide where his loyalty lies: with the small farmers whose way of life is slipping through their fingers, or with the corporate machine reshaping the land and livelihoods around him—including his own.

In a Pickle is a heartfelt and timely novel about rural roots, quiet resistance, and the cost of progress in a changing America. Full of warmth, wit, and ethical complexity, it captures a bygone era with surprising relevance for today’s readers.

A forgotten building, a buried past—and a small town full of stories waiting to be uncovered.

In The Mercantile at Link Lake, bestselling author Jerry Apps weaves together past and present in a rich tapestry of small-town life, historical legacy, and community resilience. When Chicago-based writer Susan Frederick is assigned to write about a decaying mercantile building in rural Link Lake, Wisconsin, she arrives expecting a brief, forgettable assignment. Instead, she uncovers a trove of stories that stretch from the Civil War to Prohibition, filled with unforgettable characters, local lore, and spirited debate about whether to preserve or demolish the building. As the town wrestles with its future, Susan finds herself unexpectedly drawn to its past.

Told through multiple perspectives and timelines, The Mercantile at Link Lake brings to life a bygone era while exploring urgent contemporary themes—rural identity, the power of storytelling, and what it means to protect history. Rich in Wisconsin heritage and driven by heartfelt characters like Fred and Oscar, two retired farmers with deep roots in the community, the novel pays tribute to the role local landmarks play in shaping collective memory. It’s a deeply human story about connection, preservation, and finding meaning where you least expect it.

A shattered window. A fractured community. One man caught in the middle.

When a rock bearing a menacing message crashes through the window of a public meeting, County Extension Agent Scott Olson finds himself at the epicenter of growing unrest in Ames County. Tensions simmer beneath the surface of this close-knit rural community, and Scott is determined to bring people together before divisions spiral out of control.

With help from a devoted team of coworkers, Scott works to restore calm and unity, but his mission comes at a personal cost. As threats mount and the stakes rise, he struggles to prove to his longtime love and colleague that she hasn’t been forgotten in the chaos.

In this timely and heartfelt novel, loyalty, love, and community collide—forcing Scott to confront not only the conflicts around him but also the choices that could define his future.

Jerry Apps returns to Ames County with a heartfelt story that blends small-town life, nature’s rhythms, and the enduring spirit of community.

In Settlers Valley, Jerry Apps takes readers deep into the heart of small-town Wisconsin, where neighbors, landscapes, and history intertwine in unforgettable ways. Through richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling, the novel explores how a community grapples with change, wrestles with division, and ultimately rediscovers its resilience.

At once tender and thought-provoking, Settlers Valley celebrates the quiet power of nature, the unbreakable bonds of community, and the hope that can be found even in challenging times. With warmth, humor, and an eye for the details that make rural life so extraordinary, Apps reminds us that small places often hold the biggest stories.

When a frac sand mine threatens a historic oak and a rural town’s future, neighbors must decide what’s worth fighting for.

When the Alstage Mining Company proposes a frac sand mine in the small Ames County village of Link Lake, events quickly escalate to a crisis. Business leader Marilyn Jones of the Link Lake Economic Development Council heads the pro-mine forces, citing needed jobs and income for the county. Octogenarian Emily Higgins and other Link Lake Historical Society members are aghast at the proposed mine location in the community park, where a huge and ancient bur oak—the historic Trail Marker Oak—has stood since it pointed the way along an old Menominee trail. Reluctantly caught in the middle of the fray is Ambrose Adler, a reclusive, retired farmer with a secret.

Soon the fracas over frac sand attracts some national attention, including that of Stony Field, the pen name of a nationally syndicated columnist. Will the village board vote to solve their budget problems with a cut of the mining profits? Will the mine create real jobs for local folks? Will Stony Field come to the village to lead protests against the mine? And will defenders of the Trail Marker Oak literally draw a battle line in the sand?

Plum Falls, New York, 1840s:
Dismissed from Harvard Divinity School for his progressive beliefs, Increase Joseph Link returns home disillusioned and resigned to a life of farming—until a lightning strike and a mysterious voice urge him to “rise and speak.” Heeding the call, Increase becomes an impassioned preacher, championing causes far ahead of his time: environmental stewardship, the abolition of slavery, and an end to war. His message draws a devoted group of followers who call themselves the Standalone Fellowship.

Link Lake, Wisconsin, 1852:
Seeking fertile ground for both farming and faith, Increase leads his fellowship west to the Wisconsin wilderness, where they settle near a pristine lake he named in his honor. With soaring oratory and a sense of divine mission, Increase inspires his community with a simple yet urgent message: “Unless we take care of the land, we shall all perish.” To support the fellowship, he bottles and sells his own miracle tonic—for just fifty cents a bottle.

Inspired by true events from 19th-century New York and Wisconsin, The Travels of Increase Joseph is the first novel in Jerry Apps’s acclaimed Ames County series. Spanning generations and steeped in rich rural history, the series also includes In a Pickle, Blue Shadows Farm, and Cranberry Red. Together, they reflect Apps’s deep roots in the land and his lifelong advocacy for rural communities and environmental care.

When a frac sand mine threatens a historic oak and a rural town’s future, neighbors must decide what’s worth fighting for.

When the Alstage Mining Company proposes a frac sand mine in the small Ames County village of Link Lake, events quickly escalate to a crisis. Business leader Marilyn Jones of the Link Lake Economic Development Council heads the pro-mine forces, citing needed jobs and income for the county. Octogenarian Emily Higgins and other Link Lake Historical Society members are aghast at the proposed mine location in the community park, where a huge and ancient bur oak—the historic Trail Marker Oak—has stood since it pointed the way along an old Menominee trail. Reluctantly caught in the middle of the fray is Ambrose Adler, a reclusive, retired farmer with a secret.

Soon the fracas over frac sand attracts some national attention, including that of Stony Field, the pen name of a nationally syndicated columnist. Will the village board vote to solve their budget problems with a cut of the mining profits? Will the mine create real jobs for local folks? Will Stony Field come to the village to lead protests against the mine? And will defenders of the Trail Marker Oak literally draw a battle line in the sand?