Kristin Hannah did it again! I've lost count of the times I've cried while reading this book! It was one of those books that if read in the bus on the way home, prepare for people to start looking at you strangely because you're right there either sniffing your nose or rubbing your eyes from too many tears that won't stop falling. The intricate details, careful writing and intense research that went into this are beyond commendable.

This story takes place in the 1930's during America's darkest times: the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression— the stock market crash that caused poverty, unemployment, homelessness and panic. It's about life-altering decisions, blind hope, and survival. Elsa Wolcott grew up in a household where she's not accepted and loved. She was forced to hide all her life, always following what her parents want, never knowing how to use her voice. It was heartbreaking to watch her struggling and fighting to belong in a world that showed her nothing but greed. This book answers questions like how far will you go for the people you love, what prices you're willing to pay, and how many times you have to suffer before you decide you've had enough. It was soul-shattering, poignant and unforgettable.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an earc! The Four Winds comes out on February 2nd!

Another incredible story from historical fiction queen Kristin Hannah! The Four Winds is a story of the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl era, and the American dream, but it is also a story of the resilience of women. Complex family dynamics, love and the many ways it’s shown, and the power of standing up for what you believe in all play a role in this beautiful story. Highly recommend for anyone who enjoys historical fiction or family relationships stories.

With The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah proves again that she excels at creating realistic storylines; strong, relatable, and complex characters; and making the reader feel a part of the action.

This historical fiction novel is set in the 1930's as Americans deal with the abject poverty of the Great Depression and farmers try to hold on to their land through the Dust Bowl years brought on by years of severe drought. As we follow Elsa Martinelli and her two children, Baby Boomers and all generations who follow, get an indelible understanding and appreciation of what those of the Greatest Generation went through and how they earned that designation with their determination, their blood, sweat, and tears, and their resolve to never give up.

A fascinating and emotional read that had me feeling the grit of the dirt, the high, dry winds, the hot, blazing sun, never ending hunger, and the cold of winters. Kristin Hannah, I will read anything you write!!

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me the privilege of reading an early copy of this novel set to be published on 2/2/21. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I'm sorry, but if the first two chapters of a book just go on and on about how "plain" the main character looks and how her life is hard because she isn't pretty, even in a historical context, I just cannot make myself care about that character.

Kristin Hannah’s book The Four Winds is an extremely emotional story of a family, and their push to overcome hardships and learn some of life’s important lessons. Kristin Hannah is quite the wordsmith, and through her storytelling transported me to this period in time. She did this so expertly that I couldn’t help feel each emotion the characters were feeling like it was my own. The story follows Elsa as she embarks on her journey to find where she belongs and what she believes in, despite living during the harsh times of the Dust Bowl and The Great Depression. Through Elsa’s experiences we see the tenacity and grit it took to not only live during this dark period in American history, but we also saw how important it was to find and stand up for what you believed to be right. The touching and sometimes trying relationship between mother and daughter was also explored between Elsa and her daughter Lorena; delving deep into the struggles that sometimes accompany such a strong bond.
Get the tissues ready because this book will tough your heart in so many ways! Definitely a must read!

I didn't expect a book set in the Great Depression to be a happy-go-lucky read, but I also didn't expect it to be quite so depressing. It started off strong. In the first chapter, Elsa hooked me and I was eager to read her story. She had dreams and hopes... and then something happened and I knew before I finished reading about it, what the outcome would be. It wasn't long after that I wasn't quite so fond of her (not because of the event that took place). I spent most of the book rolling my eyes at her unwillingness to believe that a single person could love her or think her pretty. My empathy for her quickly turned to annoyance as she kept everything to herself. There wasn't a ton of action in the story, but every bad thing that could happen, did. We were told about it without getting to experience it. Some of it seemed to be glossed over in order to move on to the next bad thing that was due to happen. There wasn't an emotional investment on my part since the writing felt devoid of emotion. I felt that the end of the book was rushed and the ending was just a way to kick the reader when they were already down. While this one missed the mark for me, I appreciated that Elsa and Loreda experienced some growth, even though it seemed to come in at the very last minute.

The Four Winds
By Kristin Hannah
⭐⭐⭐⭐

I think I've never read a book with so much details like this. The research behind it is awesome and the main character goes through every single thing that happened during the Dust Bowl, the drought and the Great Depression. This book makes you feel like you're there during those hard times and you will follow the characters from the very beginning when life was more comfortable, through the times when there was no rain, with limited food and water, dust storms, erosions, people leaving, people and animals dying and no money. But you also follow them as they get tougher, doing what you have to do to save your kids lives, the family love and support, the love for their land, and the hard decision of staying or leaving West to California. Then it shows you how California was when all the migrants arrived, poverty and no jobs, and then it basically tells you that communism was the solution to their problems, and that idea costed them more than they could have imagined.

The Four Winds tells a story of a woman that had spent her life not being loved by her own family, then ends up getting married after getting pregnant and then finds love in her husband's family, their land and then discovers true love when she has her first baby. Even though she is kinda boring, the things she goes through makes you feel sympathy for her and it makes you understand how life used to be back then. She becomes a strong woman that does literally anything to save her kids lives (she has a girl and a young boy). There was a part of the book that I almost gave up but I didn't want this one to be my first dnf of the year so I kept going. I love the history, how well it was written and all the details. This is my first Kristin Hannah book and it won't be the last. It wasn't a wow book with twists but it was a wow in terms of details and I really enjoyed learning about the Dust Bowl and everything those people had to go through to survive. Awesome book!

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

God forsaken. How else could one describe it? God had turned His back on the Great Plains.

I’ve really enjoyed some of Kristen Hannah past works, but Four Winds just didn’t do it for me. Four Winds is narrated by two characters: Elsa and her daughter, Loreda. The main character, Elsa, was pretty lackluster, and I had a hard time connecting with her. Her character by design is pretty meek and that just isn’t the type of character I enjoy reading about. In the end, she finds her voice and becomes bolder, but, for me, it was just too little too late. Her daughter, by contrast, is very outspoken, but she was a bit annoying to be honest with the constant battling with her mother. With her age, it makes since, but after a while it became tiresome.

The time period in which Four Winds was set was something I knew very little about, and I found it fascinating to learn about the Dust Bowl. Hannah’s description of the land is visceral. You truly feel how desolate and horrific this experience would have been for these people.

In the end, this novel just seemed to be trying to do too much. The family’s experience with the Dust Bowl was a novel in itself, but the novel continues to include a whole other plotline about the agricultural strikes in California. The ending was abrupt, and I felt like we never truly got any resolution on the strike plotline. Overall, I enjoyed Four Winds. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as Hannah’s past works like The Nightingale and The Great Alone.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for gifting me the latest novel by Kristin Hannah. Another 5 star work that will leave you reeling.

It's the 1930s in the Texas Panhandle. Elsa was a sickly child and never lived up to her parents' expectations of beauty first and foremost. When she had even the remote chance of someone thinking she was special, she took it, only to find herself pregnant and cast out of her family. Into that loss entered Tony and Rosa, her in-laws, who eventually came to be more than family. She entered a farming life with her husband, Rafe, and her parents, joined soon by her children, Loreda and Ant. But nature can be cruel and the devastating droughts and the dust storms soon made life inhabitable. There was nothing left but to move to California where supposedly jobs were plentiful and a new life awaited. The reality was much different. Elsa wanted no hand outs but soon discovered that her family was not welcome and completely shunned by the locals. Forced to work as a slave and be forever indebted to the company man left no room for hope. However, for her children, Elsa always did the right thing and was the incredibly strong force for making a better life for her children.

Another absolutely wonderful book by Kristin Hannah. This is a book that will leave you gasping. It's hard to read the struggles that previous generations endured. It's hard to imagine ever having the resiliency and hope where no hope exists that they endured. While it is unbelievable to read about how Americans treated other Americans, when you read the newspaper headlines today, you worry about how much things have really changed. Everyone should read this book and take stock of all that we are blessed with now. Of course, during this pandemic, so many people are sick, dying and losing all that is dear to them. But for so many of us, we should think long and hard the next time we have the thought of complaining about having to stay home with all our creature comforts or to wear a simple face mask when we walk outside.

Highly recommended!

Can you give a book you didn’t like a 5⭐️ review?

SUMMARY: Elsa’s life as a confirmed spinster in the 1920’s Texas panhandle is upended when she finds herself pregnant and married to a teenage farmer. She works hard to make a life for herself and her family, but the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and the California migrant experience have other plans.

This may be the first 5⭐️ book I’ve read that I actively did not enjoy. The writing was good, the characters were well-crafted and the history was interesting. However, the subject matter was so heavy, and the story of Elsa’s life, which was not great to begin with, got progressively worse over time. I devoured it over two days and kept rooting for things to turn around for our girl! Maybe it’s the Romance reader in me, but I want everyone to get their happily ever after.

I do think there are a lot of parallels between the challenges faced by those in the book and the world we occupy today. So many seek only to work to support their families, but our institutions are not set up to support those who fall on hard times. And even those seeking a better life are often silenced by those in power. If that’s something you’re interested in reading about, then this is the book for you. It would certainly lead to some thought-provoking discussions in a book club setting!

Would I recommend it to myself? No. Not in 2021.

This is a great novel. In The Four Winds, we follow the story of Elsa, from her early adulthood as a neglected daughter in a wealthy family, to life as a wife and mother in farming family. The characters are all very strongly drawn, and the plot moves forward nicely. The heart of the story is the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Hannah does a superb job of illustrating the effect of the dust storms on the family and community. The story takes us to California and puts us in the shoes of the migrant workers of the 30s. I am appalled at my own gapping hole of knowledge of this time period, and I am so grateful to have had an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. Highly recommend reading this beautiful and heart wrenching story.

Elsa's life turns around when she meets Rafe. The sheltered daughter of a small town businessman, she finds herself pregnant, married, and living on a farm in the Texas panhandle. Things are good initially: she has a good relationship with her in-laws Rosa and Tony, two lovely children in Ant and Laredo, and has found happiness in working the land. Then the dust storms start and everything the family has worked for starts to blow away. Rafe opts to leave, without telling anyone, for California but Elsa sticks it out until Ant is so ill with dust pneumonia that his life is at risk. So she opts to leave=packing up Lareda and Ant into their jalopy and driving to California. But all is not well there. Hannah has written a tough but compelling read of a woman with grit and determination. Told lately from Rosa's perspective, this also gives voice to Laredo, who struggles with their situation but becomes involved, at the age of 13, with the labor movement. Thanks to the publisher for the ARc. This might remind you in spots of the Grapes of Wrath- the theme is the same- but it's distinguished by Hannah's writing style and the focus on women. It will pull very hard at your heart. Excellent read that will make you think about how we treat one another.

This is the my first book by Kristin Hannah, and I can see why she is so popular. She has an easy-to-read, contemporary voice and a strong sense of pacing.

Strongly reminiscent of The Grapes of Wrath, The Four Winds gives a new generation of readers a look at they trauma surrounding The Great Depression. Hannah chooses to tell the story from a woman’s perspective, making it fresh and relevant to many of today’s readers. I can see it as a successful book club selection.

A final point: the character development is so rich and nuanced that Elsa and her children will remain long after the final page is turned. I was so moved by her story, especially in the beginning and ending chapters. Indeed, tears were shed.

Thank you to Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is my third book by Hannah and she is such a phenomenal writer it is ridiculous. The Four Winds is set in the period of The Great Depression, and we start in Texas, at a dangerous time when a severe drought hits and many are forced to up and leave for California where a better life awaits. The plot revolves around Elsa Martinelli, a protagonist like none I have seen in a while. She is resilient, tough, and has not had it easy by any means. This is not a time period that I would ever desire to live in, and Hannah is kind enough to remind me of this with Elsa’s situation, the farm she lives on with her husband and his family has entered a drought, the Depression is in full force, and here comes the Dust Bowl era. It is the worst of times. Elsa must make a choice, does she stay and suffer or risk it all for California, where everyone seems to want to go but the journey will not be easy?

You must know that this by no means is a happy read. It is depressing, gut punch after gut punch, and you start to wonder if you are going to make it through along with these characters. But then you realize that Hannah has created yet another masterpiece, and you feel like you are there with them, suffering with them and you just want it all to be ok for all involved, but alas. This was phenomenal, and Elsa is one tough woman that I will not soon forget. The choices she makes for her family are not ones I could make. The fact that she could make them given her less than ideal childhood show her character even more. And the ending? Absolutely fantastic. Add this to your tbr if you have not already.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy to review.

"Love is what remains when everything else is gone."

My first 5 star read of 2021! A story of resilience, of love, mother daughter relationships, and of pushing boundaries for those you love and for things you believe in.

I was immediately drawn into Kristin Hannah's latest and felt a strong kinship with the heroine, Elsa. Largely misunderstood by her family, and set back by a childhood illness, she spends much of her time alone with her books. Her unexpected marriage into the Martinelli family brings her alive in ways her own family couldn't, and as her mother in law notes, she has an enormous capacity for love - something she had grown up thinking she didn't deserve.

Set against the backdrop of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, an era in American history I'll admit I don't know much about, I was horrified to learn of the conditions so many American farmers lived under in what can only be considered famine. When Elsa takes her daughters to California, 'the land of milk and honey' to seek better fortunes, it felt too good to be true...and it was. While I was surprised by the turn of events that lead the story towards Union workers and socialism, I was pleased to read in the afterword that it was very much anchored in true events and history. It leaves you asking yourself, when it truly counts, what are you willing to do for those you love and for what you believe in?

Thank you NetGalley for the epub ARC!

From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.

“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.



My Thoughts: A beautiful family story about love, loss, and bravery, The Four Winds tugged at my heartstrings as it led us through numerous challenges while introducing us to memorable characters. Elsa fought hard to teach her children about standing up for what they need and for what is right.

The author paints a vivid picture of the family battling the Great Depression while living in the Texas Dust Bowl, and then takes us along to another battle for survival in the California migrant experience. A triumphant yet emotional end kept me turning pages, while rooting for them all. 4.5 stars.

Kristin Hannah's books have all been fantastic and they regularly top Best Seller lists around the world. Her new book THE FOUR WINDS is her best book yet. It is being released in only a few days (on Feb. 3rd) and if it is pre-ordered on Chapters, you get it for 30% off. (I do not get a commission, I just wanted to share the savings I discovered).

Set during the Great Depression, this book will transport you to that time and to the Dust Bowl of the farmlands hit by the multi-year drought.

The protagonist, Elsa is a woman who just wants to survive and to perhaps have a small slice of happiness along the way. Despite not believing there is anything special about her, readers will not be able to stop from investing
themselves in her life and hoping that something good will happen for her.

This may be a fictional tale, but Elsa and many real women like her did experience the very same events during the Great Depression. She represents all those bold and courageous women who did anything and everything they could to ensure the survival of their children.

There was a great deal of research done to ensure the events and occurences Elsa and her family go through are based in historical fact.

Kristin Hannah is an artist, her medium is not paint, but words. She has the ability to manipulate her reader's emotions and to build a relationship between characters and readers. It is exceptionally rare that a book will make me cry, yet THE FOUR WINDS does exactly that.

If you are only going to read one book this year, I cannot stress enough that you must read this book.

At 464 pages, you might assume that there would be times where the narrative became dull, but this is just not so. Every page holds the reader rapt with attention. THE FOUR WINDS is UN-PUT-DOWNABLE.

The normal book review rating scale is based on a 1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the very best. Well, a 1 to 5 scale is just not sufficient for Kristin Hannah's new book. I am choosing to rate "The Four Winds" as 10 out of 5 Stars which I have never done before. That is how highly I recommend this book. People will be talking about this book for a very long time.

There are lessons to be learned from this book. Lessons that can easily be related to the current pandemic facing North Americans today.

In closing, I say: BUY THIS BOOK. 

*** Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book. ***

Kristin Hannah has once again written a novel that is both moving and gut-wrenching. The basis for this story is the Dust Bowl and a family’s desperate struggle to survive. You will marvel at the resilience that is displayed and the family's will to go on.

Elsa Wolcott has always felt that she is a disappointment to her family. When she becomes pregnant, she is disowned and must make a life with the boy’s parents who begrudgingly take her in. She works her whole life to feel worthy, to her husband, kids and in-laws. Tragedy strikes in the form of the dust bowl. She and her children move to California for survival and for the hopes of a better life, only to have those hopes dashed.

This is a heartbreaking novel. Although fiction, the scenes are taken from documented incidents that leave you shaking your head. It is not a light or easy book to read but you will be compelled to keep turning pages. As Ms. Hannah is so well at doing, the ending leaves you feeling that all the hardships were with meaning and worth it.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book had me bawling by the end. So many emotions in those last few chapters just build up until you can't hold back your tears. But what a great story.

You'll fall in love with Elsa and everyone she encounters. These characters are so round that it's hard to believe they aren't real and that you haven't actually experienced Welty's camp or the ditch bank. Looking through images of the Dust Bowl, Hannah enraptured enraptured essence perfectly through words and made their story more than just images. She gave life to it.

And Jack. You're rooting so hard for him and when you get it, it's taken away in the blink of an eye. Absolutely heartbreaking.

You'll fall in love with this book and it's one that will stick with you forever.

“The Four Winds a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it―the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.”

Thank you NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for a honest review. This story and the characters wrecked me. While reading the beginning someone called to tell me it was raining and my heart leapt which seems so weird because Kristin Hannah is an amazing storyteller. The tragedy and descriptions around the dust storms and peril of this era really came to life for me. No spoilers but prepare to shed a tear or two and cheer for the heroine and her children. This book shows that he’d work, faith and hope prevail. So good!