Sons & Daughters
/Karoline Olsen’s journey continues
Sons & Daughters is the second in Ann Hanigan-Kotz’s series of books about the Olsen family. The town of Soldier and other local areas are featured in the book.
When Ann Hanigan-Kotz wrote her first book, she never intended for it to be part of a series.
“I did not see myself as an author – it was just a bucket-list thing,” Ann said. “I wrote it for me. I wrote it for my mom.”
Ann self-published “The Longest Journey” in 2021.
The book is a work of historical fiction that tells the story of Ann’s great-great-grandmother, who had to raise 10 children on a farm near Soldier when her husband died in 1905.
Ann first heard the stories from her mother.
When BookPress Publishing, of West Des Moines, picked up the book, it was retitled “The Journey of Karoline Olsen.”
On Sunday, October 29, Karoline Olsen’s journey will continue with the launch of “Sons & Daughters,” the second book in a planned series of three.
Ann said she changed her mind about writing sequel books even before she had self-published the first.
“When I had my book club read it, they wanted a second book because they wanted to know what happened to the main character, and they wanted to know what happened to the children,” she said.
Rather than a bucket list item to be checked off, she found that she enjoyed the process of writing.
Ann is a 1984 graduate of Denison High School (DHS); she taught high school English for 33 years and is now retired from that profession.
She and her husband, John Kotz, a 1980 DHS graduate, live in Adel.
For the second book, Ann set out to answer questions about how Karoline’s life unfolded after the death of her husband.
“Does she get married again? How does she survive on the farm?” she said. “Some of the children had gone through traumatic experiences in book one, and I wanted to finish those stories and tell how the children turned out without a father.”
Some of the older children knew their father well, but the younger ones didn’t.
Karoline is pregnant at the end of the first book, adding a further complication to her life.
“Sons & Daughters” picks up right where “The Journey of Karoline Olsen” ends.
“She’s walking back from the cemetery,” Ann said.
The new book spans the period from 1905 to 1933, during which five major events took place: Suffrage, the 1918 Spanish Flu, World War I, Prohibition and the Great Depression.
“I was really curious to see what those looked like in Iowa,” she said. “We’ve all studied those in our American History classes, but we always studied them from a world view or a U.S. view.”
Ann knew of a few family stories told by her mother about that period, but she knew next to nothing about the lives of most of Karoline’s children.
“That basically freed me up to create storylines for each one of them,” she said. “These are characters – they’re not real people – and I used those five major events and wove them into the children’s stories.”
She said story for the second book unfolded for her as a writer in a different way from how it had happened the first time around.
“In the first book, I had some events that I wanted to make sure that I put in, and I had to write around those events and figure out how I could connect other things to them,” Ann said. “This time around, I also had events but I could kind of use those as the backbone instead of writing around them.”
She used the real details of where and how one of the Olsen boys fought and died in World War I.
“But I really wanted to know what the war looked like at home, so that’s more where I focused,” Ann said.
She said her publisher has helped guide her along the way.
“He’s really supportive in helping me figure out ways to market the book, where to go to get more readership, and he also gives me total control of what I do,” Ann said.
When she signed on, she told the publisher that the Olsen series would include three books – but she also has a book about Templeton Rye (the liquor, not the company) and bootlegging in Carroll County in the 1920s.
Because a lot of people have shown interest in the fourth book, Ann decided she wanted to publish it before the third Olsen series book.
“I told him why, and he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it,’ and he started to think about ways we could market that bootleg book,” she said.
The publisher also agreed to her request to replace the first editor he assigned to her.
“The first editor didn’t really understand Iowa, so I have a new editor for the second book,” Ann said.
The new editor knows Iowa and has offered very good feedback, she said.
“I think I’ve pretty much settled into an editor that is going to work for me,” Ann said.
Ann Hanigan-Kotz is a 1984 graduate of Denison High School.
Along with spending time working on her books, she works hard to develop her readership.
She gives presentations at lots of libraries and sells her books at craft shows, such as Applefest in Woodbine.
Ann will be in Denison on October 28, the day before her book launch, for the craft show from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Boulders Conference Center.
“I love talking to readers,” she said. “I really enjoy hearing people’s comments about the book.”
She recently had a memorable conversation with a woman who was mad at one of her characters.
“To know that you’ve influenced people that much as they read is so powerful,” Ann said.
She said she didn’t plan to become a writer, but she has found herself in an entirely unintended second career as just that.
“I’m actually working on book five right now – and I don’t know when the books are going to end,” Ann said. “I have more ideas.”
The book launch party for “Sons & Daughters” will take place from 4 to 8 p.m. on October 29 at Midway Tavern in Soldier – which is featured in the book.
“One of the chapters is set in that location – it was called the Soldier Saloon,” she said. “When I was there about a year ago, I took pictures of the interior of the Midway Tavern and I used that for the description in the chapter.”
Ann said Soldier has been very supportive.
“Soldier is such a welcoming town, and they have been really excited about these books,” she said. “The owner of the Midway Tavern is making chili and we’ll have free beer.”
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