The Pruning Season

Some seasons do not destroy us. They cut away what can no longer remain.

Wynand Louw is forty-four and managing a fruit packhouse in the Elgin Valley. From the outside, his life appears steady. In truth, his marriage is failing, alcohol has become a refuge, and the damage passed down from his father is beginning to take root in him.

After a panic attack at three in the morning, Wynand finds himself in the office of Abel, the elderly night watchman. Their unlikely friendship moves from the packhouse to the pear orchards, where Abel teaches him how trees are pruned—and introduces him to the words of Jesus in John 15:

“I am the vine.”

But change does not come without pain.

When Wynand refuses to falsify a workplace record, he places his career at risk. When a preventable accident ends a young worker’s life, he must decide whether to protect himself or tell the whole truth. As temptation, confession, unemployment and death strip away everything he has relied upon, even the presence of God seems to disappear.

All that remains is the difficult instruction to abide.

Set among the pear orchards, packhouses and changing seasons of the Western Cape, The Pruning Season is a Christian novel about inherited brokenness, moral courage, grief, forgiveness and the slow work of becoming new.

It is a story for anyone who has wondered whether faith can survive failure, whether forgiveness is still possible after irreversible harm, and whether a life cut back almost to nothing can bear fruit again.

The pruning is painful. But it is not the end of the tree.

Approximately 68,000 words

20 chapters across four seasonal parts

Available in PDF, Word and EPUB formats