Thanks to Turner Publishing Company and NetGalley for this free e-book ARC in return from my honest review..

Foreign Seed is a fascinating literary novel which revolves around the drowning death of US agricultural agent Frank Meyer in China, as well as the efforts of US vice council Samuel Sokobin to locate Meyers body somewhere on the Yangtze River and return it to Shanghai for burial. The novel is based upon the true disappearance of Myers on one of his expeditions in China on behalf of the United States, foreign seed organization, and Samuel Sokobin's exploits in trying to find the body. But that's not the gist of the story. While it is a very important part, this is more about discovery. It's about a discovery of one's inner self as Sukha been set off on his mission rack with worry and guilt about the safe of his brother Ethan, who was a pilot for the US Air Force during World War I. The book is set in 1918 and the world is weary of war. And while many books have been written, describing the experiences of the soldiers, this book takes a a soldiers fate can affect their friends, relatives or loved ones. One of the most interesting parts of this book is the fact that one of the main characters is cigarettes. and not just any cigarette, but Chesterfield cigarette. why Chesterfield? Well it was called the soldiers cigarette and after Ethan Sokobin went missing, Samuel Sokobin begins smoking the cigarettes as a way to relieve himself from all the attention that has built up due to his brothers disappearance over the English channel. Months have gone by no word has been heard from for about Ethan and has wrapped Samuel with major psychological problems. And they accompany him on his trip up the river. Luckily, he is assisted by a Chinese translator, Mr. Lin. And he also gets to examine how Mr. Lin is treated while traveling on the train together, I'm being denied at seat in First Class because Chinese may not sit in first class with English citizens, even though they have a seat for that compartment. But without Mr. Lin, this entire case would not be resolved, as Lin is able to discover the whereabouts of Frank Meyers body and then work out all the details for identification, as well as transportation back down the river towards Shanghai. Along the way Sokobin and Lin bond sometime over words and many times over actions. By the end of the book, you can see that they have become friends. This was a very easy read, filled with actual events that have been culled from history goes even deeper into the psyche of Samuel Sokobin. Author, Allison Allsup does a wonderful job of incorporating concept of ambiguous loss into her characters, as both Sokobin and Lin are both reeling from losses in World War I. We know Sokobin's brother has disappeared, but Lin's brother is in France and it appears that he has no desire to return to China when the war ends. so, in the end, we have a story of discovery, the discovery of the body of Frank Myers, as well as both Samuel Sokobin and Mr. Lin deal with their own personal problems. A very enjoyable read for me with rich characters and a plot line that makes everyone think about any ambiguous loss that might have occurred in our lives.

Foreign Seed by Allison Alsup was a title I was eagerly awaiting based on the synopsis and I was not disappointed! I was gobsmacked to discover that this was a debut novel as the writing could easily match some of my heroes, like Wilbur Smith, James Clavell and Arthur Golden to name just a few. Alsup will surely join the ranks of these greats if this book is anything at all to go by

Foreign Seed follows Samuel Sokobin, the American Vice Consul as his work takes him into rural China to find Frank Meyer. Sokobin has to navigate the unknown (to him) in the most tumultuous times at the turn of the 20th century (not least the attack on the US gunboat Monocracy in error) as well as the global pandemic and political upheaval.

I was utterly immersed in the humanity of this book, the exploration of Sokobin as he conducts his work, navigates relationships and endures the pain of not knowing the fate of his little brother

A wonderful read and certainly one to return to over and over

Thank you to NetGalley, Turner Publishing Company | Keylight Books and the author Allison Alsup for this stunning ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

An immersive reading experience

Allison Alsup’s debut novel FOREIGN SEED accomplishes a rare balance in fiction: beautiful, lyrical writing that transported me to another time and place AND a propulsive plot that kept me turning the pages and reading long past my bedtime.

After a perfect opening chapter, I was hooked. The characters are tightly drawn and three-dimensional (even the secondary characters) and the unfolding action, setting descriptions, and dialogue are gripping. The author handles the fraught theme of ambiguous loss with grace and elegance.

This book is beautifully written and definitely has cinematic potential. At the beginning, I was getting Casablanca vibes and by the end, I was thinking about another favorite movie, The Year of Living Dangerously.

Highly recommended.

Samuel Sokobin, an American vice-consul in Nanking, China, during World War I, is dispatched upriver to investigate the disappearance of a noted American explorer, Frank Meyer, in Allison Alsup’s “Foreign Seed,” a “Heart of Darkness” sort of dark exploration which she tells us in an afterward is based largely on fact and which I found to be utterly compelling.
Speculation is that Meyer fell overboard from a steamer where he was last seen, though it seems unlikely that so rugged an adventurer would fall victim to such a mishap. But there’s no indication of foul play, and suicide seems equally unlikely, though there are indications that he wasn’t feeling well and may have been depressed.
A disagreeable business all-round to have to be looking into, Sokobin feels, particularly when, in the novel’s strongest scene, he has to identify remains believed to be those of Meyer which have been buried without a coffin and which are in the state you might imagine. Plus he is dealing with his own demons, including an affair that went bad which I’d liked to have seen more of and news that his brother, a flier with a Yank squadron, has been reported missing in a reconnaissance flight.
“This putrid, Godforsaken war,” Sokobin thinks of the war which hovers in the background of this novel reminiscent of the works of Greene, Conrad or Orwell. Also very much in the background is the vile antisemitism of the day, which put me in mind of a movie which coincidentally I had just seen, “Train to Zakopané,” in which an otherwise very appealing young woman asserts that she can smell a Jew a kilometer away, a sentiment voiced in Alsup’s novel when a character says that he would have known if Meyer were Jewish because “one can generally tell with Hebrews.”
All in all, one of the best books I’ve read in some time, Alsup’s novel, and one I can unqualifiedly recommend.