Book Review: The Wandering Season by Aimie K. Runyan

Title: The Wandering Season
Author: Aimie K. Runyan
Publisher: Harper Muse
Release Date: April 1, 2025
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Magical Realism

Synopsis:

Unraveling the tangled roots of her family takes her places she never expected.

Veronica Stratton, a specialty food broker with a business on the cusp of brilliant success that would change the trajectory of her life, visits her parents in idyllic Estes Park for Christmas. She’s fresh from a breakup with her longtime boyfriend, so she’s eager to reconnect with her beloved family in the mountains and forget about her troubles for a few days. But with the holiday comes a DNA test from her younger sister that confirms her secret suspicions: she’s adopted. Having the truth out in the open leaves her feeling unmoored in ways she didn’t anticipate.

With so much of her life in upheaval, Veronica is looking for an escape. Inspired by her best friend, she plans to go to Europe to see four of the places listed on her DNA ancestry report. She treks to County Mayo in Ireland; the Dordogne region of France; the countryside of Lombardy in Italy, and Copenhagen, Denmark. She hopes to learn about where her family lived while also making connections for her rapidly expanding business, but she finds that each stop brings her visions of her ancestors that raise more questions than they answer. And among those pressing questions is how charming Irish castle keeper Niall Callahan will fit into her visions for the future.

Oh my goodness, I love this book!!! It’s probably the last I’ll finish this year, and it takes home the title of favorite read of the year.

It’s Christmas, and Veronica Stratton has gone home to see her family. She braces herself for the hints, veiled and maybe not so much, that she should be running her own restaurant instead of working as a specialty food broker, sourcing the best ingredients for others. She’s stinging from a breakup with her boyfriend, and when her sister Avery surprises the family with DNA tests for Christmas that end up confirming her long-held suspicions that she was adopted, well, that’s just the cherry on the fruitcake. In an effort to help her get closer to her roots (and also to ease the shock of this news), Veronica’s sister and best friend plan the trip of a lifetime for her that takes her to places mentioned in her DNA results – Ireland, Italy, France, Denmark.

Veronica plans to make it a business trip as well as a journey of personal discovery, but she didn’t count on meeting Niall Callahan. He’s the castle keeper of Blackthorn, the lodging booked for her stay in Ireland. (A legit Irish castle, y’all. I would die.) He’s also something of a chef himself, and he takes Veronica on a foodie tour of Ireland, showing her his favorite restaurants and the farmers who provide the fresh, locally sourced ingredients he uses at Blackthorn. She also didn’t count on falling for him, but she knows it can’t be anything more than a travel fling, no matter how much she might wish otherwise.

I can relate to Veronica, oh, so much. I was adopted as an infant. Big difference for me, though, is that I always knew I was adopted. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know. I guess my parents must have explained it to me when I was just old enough to understand. I can’t imagine how Veronica felt, suspecting for a while and then having it confirmed with a DNA test.

Like Veronica, I took a DNA test to find one side of my birth family. (My birth mother had located me several years earlier.) I would have been happy with medical information, but ended up finding my birth dad’s side of the family. Yay! (Yes, it’s a good thing, on both sides!) Like Veronica, I have Irish, French, and Scandinavian in my gene pool. I felt like I could be making the trip with her to find my own roots, even though I definitely did not get the stereotypical red-haired, fair-skinned Irish look!

Veronica encountered “echoes” everywhere she went, visions of women that were connected to the places she was staying. What were these women from the past trying to tell her? I enjoy a good magical realism read, and I thought the visions were a lovely touch.

And the food! Good heavens, I feel like I gained ten pounds just by reading the book. I’m happily married, so I don’t need to fall for a handsome castle keeper, but if I ever visit Ireland, I hope someone can give me the inside scoop on all the good food (and cook some very good food!) like Niall did for Veronica.

So does Veronica actually meet any of her birth family? Who are the women she sees in her visions? Will she ever open her own restaurant? What happens with Niall? I’m not telling you that! It would spoil the story. But I will tell you that if you love a good romance, family found and found family, a journey of personal growth, and all the yummy food, you need to read The Wandering Season. The only way it could have been better is if recipes were included.

Favorite book of 2025, right here. Ten stars. All the stars. Millions of stars. I loved it so much, I hated for it to end.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book through a Facebook giveaway. I was not required to leave a review. All opinions here are mine, and I don’t say nice things about books I don’t actually like.