The first time that author Cynthia Kraack was on Mr. Media, promoting the first book in her Ashwood trilogy, I told you guys to go out and read it. This interview is going to proceed on the notion that most of you took that advice and did. The second book in the series, "Harvesting Ashwood," is out and it’s just as compelling as the first. Now, I’m not usually a guy looking for bleak, futuristic fiction, but there is something irrepressibly hopeful in Kraack’s characterizations and plotting that keeps me honed in. CYNTHIA KRAACK podcast excerpt: "If you think of stories of people who came through the Depression or the Holocaust, they are permanently changed by the experience. And that's what this woman, Anne Hartford, went through at a very young age. But she is finally letting her hair down."  Jumping forward (and a bit back for new readers), Harvesting Ashwood introduces us to Minnesota in the year 2037. There still isn’t much trust in the world, not between business and government and certainly not when it comes to protecting individual liberties. Federal employees are generally corrupt and corruptible; security is a daily grind; and feeding the residents and employees of the Ashwood estate is an unrelenting challenge. Fortunately, our heroine, Anne Hartford, is still the most resourceful woman in these somewhat United States. If you like the works of George Orwell or even if you were a fan of the Keifer Sutherland TV series “24,” there’s a lot to like and enjoy in Cynthia Kraack’s Ashwood series.   Cynthia Kraack • • • •