Second paragraph of third chapter:

It was the bridge between seasons; the days were hot, but the uncertain weather of autumn was near. Any night might bring storms, or worse, one of the tearing winds from the mountains. Every loaded cart and filled barn was triumph, every uncut field a whip cracking over their heads. This work Rahike did not command, it was too important to be left in the hands of one so new to authority; the Old Mistress did not keep her chair at Harvest, and her successor dwindled to a pupil indeed. Piety demanded that every daughter share the first day of work on her mother’s farm, although in fact Rahike’s mother hardly needed her help, since she grew less grain than green crops which had a longer gathering season; but after that the Young Mistress’s concern was with the public farmlands, and most of her time was spent going about them. The working days were long, under a sun that burned even the city women who were pale most of the year; but the urgency of the task gave it zest, and there was gaiety in the shared labour. A Harvest when all went well, as it did that year, was like a long festival. It was a time Rahike had enjoyed all her life, through all the years she had spent it on her mother’s farm; but that year, riding about her beloved land with a greater harvest to gather and a greater part to play, she felt her life brimming over.

I picked this up from the freebies table at Novacon in 2021, and I’m sure it was one of the books I looked at but never thought of borrowing from Finaghy library in my teens. It’s about unorthodox love in a pastoral society where men and women live separately, with women doing the hard work of parenting and agriculture (and indeed governing) and men floating around as craftsmen, doing occasional impregnation.

I didn’t find the premise terribly believable; of course it’s a utopia, but I wondered how such a society could come to be, and how often situations like the (supposedly unprecedented) forbidden love between the protagonists would occur. So I’m afraid I wasn’t engaged by the plot, though I can see how it would appeal to some readers. You can get it here.

Given that it’s set in a matriarchal society, it’s an easy Bechdel pass, starting with the very first conversation in the book.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2021. Next on that pile is Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, by Mariana Mazzucato.