Damnation spring : a novel
(Book)

A mother and midwife inadvertently threatens the fortunes and livelihoods of her family and their neighbors after noticing an increase in local miscarriages and believes it's caused by the pesticides used by the Sanderson Timber Company, her husband's employer.

1977. For generations, Rich Gundersen's family has chopped a livelihood out of the redwood forest along California's rugged coast. Rich and his wife, Colleen, are raising their own young son near Damnation Grove, a swath of ancient redwoods on which Rich's employer, Sanderson Timber Co., plans to make a killing. Rich has already lived decades longer than his father, killed on the job; he wants better for his son, Chub. When the opportunity arises to buy 24-7 Ridge, costing them all their savings, he grabs it. But Colleen has lost several pregnancies, and she isn't alone. The herbicides the logging company uses were considered harmless, but what if these miscarriages aren't isolated strokes of bad luck? Her search for answers will divide a town that lives and dies on timber. -- adapted from jacket