Media Kit
Welcome to the official media kit for Watermelon Winter by Eva Gerber. Here you'll find resources for press, bookstores, and media professionals.
Author Bio
Short Bio:
Eva Gerber is an Appalachian author whose debut novel, Watermelon Winter, draws on generations of family stories from southern Ohio. She writes about grit, grace, and the ways small towns hold big lives.
Full Bio:
Eva Gerber is a lifelong resident of a small town in the foothills of Appalachia. She grew up where creeks run clear, neighbors know your stories, and a neighborhood store can be the center of the world. The voices that shaped her—great-grandmother to grandmother to mother—carried recipes, remedies, and tales that traveled kitchen tables like heirlooms.
Watermelon Winter is her first novel, a piece of historical fiction set in southern Ohio at the tail end of the Great Depression and on the cusp of World War II. She still makes her home in the Appalachian foothills, where she writes, reads on the porch, and listens for the old stories that refuse to be quiet.
Book Information
- Title: Watermelon Winter
- Author: Eva Gerber
- Publication Date: October 31, 2025
- Publisher: Appalachian Press
- ISBN: 978-1-234567-89-0
- Pages: 356
- Format: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook
- Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
Book Cover Images
Click on images to download high-resolution versions for press use.
Author Photos
Click on images to download high-resolution versions for press use. Photo credit: Maria Linden.
Book Synopsis
Short Synopsis (50 words)
In 1939 Ohio, Pearl Henderson balances family duty at her father's general store with her growing feelings for a visiting historian. As war looms and winter deepens, the Henderson family's unusual solution—selling preserved watermelons—becomes a touchstone for community resilience and Pearl's own journey toward independence.
Medium Synopsis (150 words)
In the winter of 1939, as America holds its breath at the edge of war, twenty-year-old Pearl Henderson helps run her father's general store in the small river town of Millfield, Ohio. The store has been the heartbeat of the community through the Great Depression, a place where accounts are settled with produce when money runs short.
When a handsome stranger arrives to document the region for the Historical Records Survey, Pearl finds herself caught between her growing feelings for him and her responsibilities at home. Her father's declining health makes the store's survival uncertain, and Pearl's choices will determine not just her own future, but her family's legacy.
As winter deepens and food grows scarce, the town buzzes with the Henderson family's surprising solution: selling watermelons preserved from summer's harvest. This "watermelon winter" becomes a season of impossible choices as Pearl discovers what it means to choose her own life without betraying her roots.
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- Media Contact: Sarah Matthews
- Email: press@appalachianpress.com
- Phone: (555) 123-4567
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