After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through the pitfalls of young adulthood.

Hundreds of miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are forced off their land by multinational energy companies and flawed treaties. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie’s aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program.

Stefan, whose own father died in prison while on a hunger strike, promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his story, has grown sympathetic to his cause and complicit in his pushback against prejudiced accusations.

Their mutual attraction and struggle for equilibrium is stymied when Stefan’s older brother, Joachim, who stayed behind, becomes embroiled in the resistance, and Stefan is compelled to return to Canada. Sadie, concerned for his safety, impulsively follows on a trajectory doomed by cultural misunderstanding and oncoming winter.

Something clicks when Sadie Wixom spies Stefan Montegrand for the first time, although nothing happens between them just then. Instead, the attachment grows over time. But forging a relationship will be difficult for the pair. Stefan is an Indigenous person from Canada recently displaced from his home in Saskatchewan. Sadie and the rest of her family are grappling with the unexpected death of her mother.

That’s not all. As you might expect, not everyone is happy that Sadie has an interest in an Indigenous foreigner, especially the Boltons, the Wixoms’ hostile neighbors. Let Evening Come follows the two young people as they attempt to forge a relationship. It explores themes of cultural clashes and racial and social prejudice on both sides of the border. (Sadie finds she’s less than welcome when she visits Canada with Stefan).

Transitioning into adulthood is never easy, and the reader feels the growing pains with Stefan and Sadie. The book captures not only the excitement and newness of young love but also the baseless suspicions and petty jealousies that so often affect us in those years. Can Sadie and Stefan come together for a happily-ever-after, or something approaching it? You’ll have to read the book to find out. But no matter what the end of the journey looks like, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the ride.

Yvonne Osborne is a 5th generation Michigander who grew up on the family farm under the tutelage of a grandmother who loved Shakespeare before Shakespeare was cool. She is a Pushcart-nominated poet and her poetry and short stories can be found in the Flapper Press, Slippery Elm Literary Journal, Third Coast Review, Full of Crow, Midwest Review, Great Lakes Review, and in several anthologies.” Let Evening Come” is her debut novel.