I love Kristin Hannah books and this one didn’t disappoint.

The theme of this story of physical and mental abuse is ideally set against the isolation of living in Alaska. The author draws you into the characters she so richly develops. How the community rallies around the main character helps make the unbearable bearable. Hannah's books never disappoint.

Like a curved, upturned palm, Alaska beckons with her beauty, her majesty, and her prolific grandeur.

The awe-inspiring allure gestures first until the ruggedness of her backbone sets in.

The Allbright family lives on the edge of a nomad's existence. Seattle, once filled with promise, no longer does. It's 1974 and these displaced individuals are the walking wounded. Ernt bears the mental and physical scars of being a prisoner of war held in Vietnam. The nightmares are no longer wrapped in the darkness. They seep into the day and explode without warning. Cora, his wife, flits back and forth with her feeble attempts to sidestep his abusive behavior. And caught in the throws of this disfunction is thirteen year old Leni. Her silence lays a mantle over the brokenness.

Ernt receives a letter from the father of his best friend who was killed in Vietnam. Earl Harden tells Ernt that Bo left him a sizable plot of land and a cabin to him in Kaneq, Alaska. It's his for the taking. Ernt whoops with joy and begins to sell everything they have for a beat-up VW bus in order to make the journey. Cora sees the face of the love she long remembered from before the war. Perhaps this is the new beginning that they are so desperate for. And Leni just yearns for a place of permanence for once in her young life.

With hardly a plan or adequate preparation, the Allbrights find themselves in the jaw-dropping majesty of the Alaskan wilderness. With the help of Mad Earl's family and the resourceful Marge Birdsall, also known as Large Marge, the Allbrights cut into the land and start to dig in. Like the famous line from Game of Thrones: "Winter is coming." Tremendous effort must be put forth in order to exist through the brutality of an Alaskan winter.

"Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next."

Filled with grizzly bear, caribou, wolves, and enormous moose, danger is around every turn. But our story brushes against more than Nature........human nature to be exact. Ernt begins to resent his new neighbors as the darkness within him takes hold once again. And once again, Cora invents excuses for Ernt's behavior until she begins to believe it all herself. She and Leni hardly breathe in the confines of that tiny cabin.

Kristin Hannah creates a storyline that lays bare the tragedies of war, broken families, unfulfilled dreams, and the explosive side of a dormant wound. Her characterizations are remarkable as life unravels from 1974 to 1986. We will experience the dramatic changes that take place within Leni as she shields herself from the rages that exist within as well as those from the treacherous land itself. Kristin Hannah writes from a source of profound respect for the individuals who ramble down the uneven terrain of life. Her words will invoke a gamut of feelings within you as you leave your own footprints behind. A remarkable read, indeed, and so worthy of your attention.

I received a copy of The Great Alone through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to St. Martin's Press and to Kristin Hannah for the opportunity.

I love Kristen Hannah!! I love how this book took me through different time periods and different struggles. I just love the suspense!!

his is a hard book for me to review. I didn't really like it, but I couldn't put it down. It started out slow and I was sure I wasn't going to like it at all. Then the action picked up and I couldn't stop turning pages. I still didn't like the characters. The subject matter was uncomfortable. But maybe that's what made it so readable? I think this is a book that's going to have to sit with me for a while before I can truly work out my feelings about it. Despite my mixed review, this will definitely be a book I recommend to others.

This is a spectacular epic. A love for Alaska shines through the twisting, turning story of a small family who love and hurt each other. We see the horror of war in it's after effects. The glimpse of life in the 1970's. Our heroine is a child who moves so often she never fits in. Her father is left property in Alaska by his army friend who didn't make it back.
When the story moves to Alaska everything comes vividly alive, the scenery, the characters and the story.
It was everything! Beauty, tragedy, love and redemption. Riveting, horrifying and absolutely wonderful. I highly recommend this soon to be classic.

I enjoy Kirsten Hannah’s work. This book is no exception. I was totally unprepared for what happened to Leni and Matthew. This book showed such unconditional love in many ways. The love of a mother for her child being the strongest.
The beauty of Alaska was also vividly described along with the loneliness..
I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the review copy of this book.

I loved this book. Everything about it. The writing, descriptive, emotional, wonderful. The setting-beautiful Alaska, treacherous Alaska. All the characters, rough around the edges, folks who are escaping to or from something... all the hopes and dreams...

I have read many of the author's previous works and generally liked them, although some were a little too much in the "women's lit" category for my taste. However, this one was perfect in so many ways. I don't usually cry through books, and if I do, it's only once. Hannah brings out all the emotions of being a daughter, a woman, a mother, married to a damaged VietNam era vet and plunks it into the most beautiful setting, with the best supporting characters.

Highly recommend this one.

I finished this last night so I am still processing it. That usually means I loved a book and will remember it because it left me thinking about it after reading. I think the only difficulty with the book is that the abusive relationship is so painful to read about. It might hold back some potential readers.

ALASKA! Alaska isn't just an amazing setting in the book; it is a character, the plot, the atmosphere. Great Read!

Loved, loved, loved this book. A real page tuner! Will not disappoint those who read The Nightingale.

“Were you ever out in the Great Alone,
when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in
with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and
you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world,
clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and
red, the North Lights swept in bars? —

Then you've a hunch what the music
meant. . . hunger and night and the stars. “
( From The Shooting of Dan McGrew by Robert W. Service)

It's to the wilderness of Alaska, this "Great Alone", a most fitting description, that Leni Allbright and her parents go, seeking yet another place that her mother hoped would be the place that made her dad happy. Kristin Hannah with vivid descriptions takes the reader here and while I've never been to Alaska, I certainly felt as though I was. Ernt Allbright, a POW who returned home from Vietnam a very different man could never keep a job and moved his family from place to place, clearly suffers from PTSD. It isn't until they move to Alaska that 13 year old Leni , realizes just how bad things are and the imminent danger in their lives. I couldn't help but love 13 year old Leni. She's wise for her age recognizing what might set off her father's rage. As she grows and her character develops, into a strong , amazing woman in spite of all the tragedy and heartache, I loved her even more. My favorite passage is from Leni's college application several years later: "Books are the mile markers of my life. Some people have family photos or home movies to record their past. I've got books. Characters. For as long as I can remember, books have been my safe place. I read about places I can barely imagine and lose myself to journeys to foreign lands to save girls who didn't know they were really princesses. Only recently have I learned why I needed those faraway worlds."

Leni has a loving bond with her mother and together they try to survive this place with the freezing, treacherous, winters and the most terrifying of dangers that they face within the cabin where they live - the mental instability, the volatility combined with alcohol, and violence of her father as he wreaks havoc in their lives and the people of the town. It is the friendships that Leni and Cora make with a fabulous cast of characters that help them survive it all. Large Marge was my favorite but I also loved Matthew who was the only friend Leni could remember having in her life. This is more than a coming of age story. It’s about the reality of post war PTSD, the awful reality of spousal abuse, about the sense of community, of belonging, about survival not just in the wilderness of Alaska but in life in with challenges that seem insurmountable. I don't often cry when reading a book, but this was one of the times. It's gripping, gritty, heartbreaking and hopeful and illustrates the versatile storytelling of Kristin Hannah.

It was impossible for me to forgive Ernt, even knowing that he was a POW, but he brought to mind the POW's bracelet I wore for a long time. I remember his name but out of privacy and respect for him, I won’t mention it here . I’ll only say that he was captured in 1971 and thankfully released in 1973. This book prompted me to search for him online. It appears that he stayed in the Army and then after retirement went on to the private sector. I hope he has had a peaceful, happy life.


I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Great Alone, including the story, the characters filled with flaws and/or kindness, the delicate handling of the topic of abuse,the toll war takes on people, and, of course, the landscape of Alaska with its beauty and harshness. This is a book which stays with you long after you read it. This is a great book club selection.

This is a great book with wonderful descriptive writing about the landscape and climate in Alaska. The majority of the book takes place there and it’s amazing to me that anyone would love to live there, mainly because the lack of much daylight all winter long, and that winter lasts nine months.

It is 1974 at the start of the book and Leni Allbright is the new girl in middle school in Seattle, at the age of thirteen she has already been in many “new” schools, having moved around the country with her parents. Her father, Ernt, can never seem to find a place that suits him, where he can find a job and be happy. He came back from Vietnam a changed man, according to her mother Cora. Leni can’t really remember her father before the war. All she knows is the constant arguing between her parents which usually ended with crying and apologies.

Ernt gets a letter from the father of a buddy whom he served with in the war. He has left his cabin and forty acres of land in Alaska to Ernt. This sounds like just the answer he has been looking for. Cora, who will do anything for Ernt because she loves him deeply, agrees to move the family there.”I need this Cora. I need a place where I can breathe again. Up there, the flashbacks and **** will stop. I know it”.

What follows is quite an adventure. When they arrive in the summer Alaska seems like a beautiful paradise. They learn how to garden and raise goats and chickens. Then the winter comes, with it’s six hours of sunshine a day and terrible cold. We learn what it means to survive a winter in Alaska, there are many friendly people in the small town where they live who reach out to help them stock supplies for the winter. Ernt is unhappy about the lack of money and provisions and he takes it out on Cora. Ernt is really a terrible man and now the situation has escalated into spousal physical abuse. Leni meanwhile has struck up a friendship with a local boy, Matthew, with whom she bonds immediately.

There are wonderfully described characters in this book. I loved Large Marge who would do anything to help her friends. Mad Earl is a man who is mad at the government, made at the military and the war which took his son and a very bad influence on Ernt. Matthew is a big hearted, loving young man whose father Tom Walker is the owner of the salon in town and has lots of influence along with money. Tom and Large Marge begin to sense that things are not alright in the Allbright household but there is little they can do because Ernt won’t allow anyone to help them.

Without going into the plot I can tell you that it is constantly changing, made me carry my Kindle wherever I went to keep up with the story and there were no slow spots for me in the flow of this book. There are unexpected tragedies and heartbreak, there is love and resilience and the characters of Cora and Leni are constantly changing and growing. In the author’s acknowledgements I learned that the story is loosely based on her family’s experiences, you can google it to learn more about her family history.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a well written, beautifully descriptive book that will take you on an adventure that you won’t soon forget.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher and NetGalley, thank you.

Will also post to amazon upon publication

I was intrigued by the Alaska setting and the fact that I enjoyed Hannah's The Nightingale well enough. Perhaps I should have reread my review of that book, though, as I wrote that Hannah's writing wasn't terribly "...detailed or lyrical or poetic or precise. At times, it fell to the level of a romance novel."

It's still true. There were so many times I wanted to toss the phone against the wall (I read this e-galley on my phone). This is from our main character, a teenager in the throes of first love: "She lost herself in him. her body was autonomous, moving in some instinctive, primal rhythm it must have known all along, edging into a pleasure so intense it was almost pain. She was a star, burning so brightly it broke apart, pieces flying, light spraying. Afterward, she fell back to earth a different girl..." (258). Puh-lease.

The most insightful moment of the book was when the main character realized she was trapped by "her mother's choice and her father's rage" (230). Otherwise, it was pretty schlocky. A heavier editing hand would have better served the reader.

I guess I'm just not in Kristin Hannah's target audience. A big disappointment!

Leni Allbright’s family had been moving from place to place as her Viet Nam veteran Dad tried to cope with his PTSD. Her parents, Cora and Ernst, had married and gave birth to her before her Dad was drafted. However when he returned to the US after a period spent as a POW, he had many mental issues.

Then her Dad discovered that a fellow soldier had willed him a home in an isolated area near Homer, Alaska. So once again the family loaded up their VW van and drove north. When they arrived, they discovered a rundown home on 40 acres of land overlooking a beach. The home had no electricity, central heating or plumbing. However there was a small town nearby and several helpful neighbors willing to assist the family and help them adjust.

When Leni got to the area school, she discovered a small building with a handful of students. She did meet Matthew, the son of a wealthy neighbor, who was the only student her age. She and Matthew became great friends. In fact he was the only friend she had in the area. Unfortunately her Dad resented Matthew’s powerful Dad and became his enemy. Then tragedy struck Matthew’s family and his mother was killed. Matthew was distraught and eventually moved to Fairbanks to live with an older sister for a few years. He thrived there but remained friendly with Leni and exchanged mail regularly.

The long winters with many hours of darkness had a disastrous effect on Ernst. He became more violent, drank heavily and often abused Cora. Then he would sober up and repent. Cora loved him deeply, refused to leave him and endured the abuse.

The abuse came to a head one night and then the family’s life changed dramatically.

This book is written by an Alaskan whose family had moved to the Kenai River area from the lower 48 states around the same time as the family in the book. She used her experiences trying to adjust to the new life as a basis for the book. There is even a photo of her family’s VW van in 1974. She shows us how the small towns that operated without electricity and sewers evolved into the cruise ship stops that fill the needs of tourists seeking outdoor adventures and incredible natural scenery.

I was anxious to start this book as Kristin Hannah is a favorite of mine. The book got off to a slow start, with the characters not entirely likable. However, midway through, the book took a turn for the better and I couldn’t put it down. Leni became a character I could (and did) cheer for. An added bonus: the descriptions of Alaska— The Great Alone.

This was a great read and a book I will be recommending to my friends and customers. Set in the days before we understood 'battered women syndrome', it did a wonderful job of presenting the hard life in Alaska and of a family dealing with an abusive father. While there is violence it is crucial to the story and should not deter most people from reading the book.

I loved this book! It kept me on the edge of my seat waiting for what would come next! The characters are so easy to love (and hate) and the descriptions of the territory of Alaska so vivid, I felt like I could really see where the story was taking place. This author has such a way of drawing the reader in, and keeping their interest. I have not been able to read any of her books without a box of tissues nearby!

Alaska—The Great Alone. Thirteen year old Leni and her parents journey there to homestead in the 1970’s. There they find challenges such as no running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity, but others in the town welcome them and pitch in to help. Her alcoholic father Ernt, paranoid and abusive, resents the one person in the town with some money. The intensity of former Vietnam POW Ernt’s hostility is palpable throughout the novel, and I was on the edge of my seat wondering what he would do next. I don’t want to give away any more of the plot, but suffice it to say the writing, the characters, and the descriptions of the Alaska landscape are vivid and compelling-- Kristin Hannah has written a book that I will never forget.

I read an Advance Readers Copy, this book will be released in early February of 2018.

I was impressed by Hannah’s The Nightingale and wowed by The Great Alone. Skillfully constructed and written, with very good character development, this is a book of contrasts. The contrast between majestic Alaska and the Outside, between Seattle and Kaneq, abuse and love, living vs surviving. Most of all, for me, it was a story of parental love.

The Great Alone should be on your 2018 reading list.