This book is set during the dust bowl of the Great Depression. It took me a while to warm up to, Elsa, the main character, but by the end I had grown to love her. It was obvious that the author had done a tremendous amount of research. The descriptions and all the details really added to the story. I especially liked that it did not have a predictable ending. This was quite a sad story, but one that I enjoyed and have continued to think about long after I finished,

Kristin Hannah has done it again! The author has created another original work, this time set in the 1930s U.S. when the farmers were praying for rain and the earth got dustier and dustier. We watch as Elsa Martinelli does what any strong woman, great mother, and all-around good person would do to save her children. The story is a little repetitive at times, however you can almost feel the grit in your teeth, the hunger pains in your stomach and the love in your heart with each turning page of the book. Thank you to Kristin Hannah and St. Martin's for the ARC.

It is rare for me to pick up historical fiction. Honestly, Kristin Hannah is one of the only authors in this genre that I will read. And as with any Hannah book, you can expect to be completely heartbroken and shattered while reading this book. I think a combination of knowing that my grandparents were young children during this era, and the current state of our country and the world…I felt everything in this book extra hard. Parts of the book were a little drawn out for me, but I became completely lost in this world and what was going on. Parts of this book are so depressing and the hopelessness and despair of the times really hits you. You wonder how many hits a person can take and keep going. I enjoyed all the characters, and especially felt the mother-daughter relationship between Elsa and Loreda.

Bottom Line: If you are into historical fiction, this was beautifully written. You feel everything. Be in the right state of mind to read it, it is horribly depressing and I feel like I am going to need several light and fluffy romance novels to cleanse myself from this.

**I received a copy of The Four Winds from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are of my own.**

A great historical fiction read from Kristin Hannah. Set in the Great Depression of the 1930’s, this is a novel of despair and dreams and Elsa, who faces both with great courage. It is evident that the author has done a lot of research into that period of American history.

Elsa comes from wealth and plenty, but she is shunned by her family who deems her weak and unworthy. In this beautiful and heartbreaking story, Hannah lays out Elsa’s journey of finding what she is really made of and who she truly is as a woman and a mother. Set during the Great Depression during the drought and dust storms of Texas, Hannah creates a world that I knew so little of but felt completely immersed in. Fans of Hannah as well as those new to her writing will be completely taken by this compelling story, and expertly developed characters. A must read.

I've read and loved many of Hannah's books, so I was excited to check this one out. I haven't read a lot of books on the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, so that caught my interest. Descriptions are vivid, and it's easy to connect with the characters.

Hannah is known for books that tug at readers' heartstrings, and this book is not exception! I love the multiple POV and timelines. This story transports readers to another time with it's rich wording and excellent portrayal of the times through a strong, determined woman.

All We are is Dust in the Wind
There are few book announcements that get me more excited than news of a forthcoming Kristin Hannah book. I first became a fan when I read The Nightingale several years ago; I loved it so much that I shared it with my favorite student, and it became his favorite book too. Hannah has a way of writing historical characters that are startlingly relatable, and of painting such vivid pictures of the past, that you almost feel like you can touch, smell, and taste the world in which her characters are living. Her books are conversation starters, relationship building blocks, and cautionary tales about the lessons we should not forget from history. I was happy to find that The Four Winds was no different, and although the Great Depression is not my favorite time period to study, I found myself thoroughly engrossed in the tale of Elsa Martinelli within just a few pages. 

Although I have spent many years teaching students about the horrors of the Dust Bowl, the desperate flight of the Okies towards California, and of the time period's racist and classist tensions, I was still enthralled by Hannah's descriptions and observations about ordinary life. At first I felt like too much time was being spent on describing the privation experienced by people on the Great Plains, but then I realized that the pages upon pages detailing the extreme heat, the lack of food and water, and reliance on the Red Cross for medical care for those suffering from dust pneumonia, served a powerful purpose. The farmers of the Great Plains valued their land, and their independence, above almost anything else, leading them to face starvation, dehydration, sickness, and loneliness if it meant holding onto that land for just a little bit longer. Unless one can understand that, it would be impossible to understand why someone would have a hard time deciding to leave, because for Elsa it is only true desperation that drives her to leave her home and head west.

As a student of history I also appreciate the time Hannah took in describing the labor crisis caused by the influx of migrants to California, leaving them to live in cycles of poverty and abuse by the land owners, just to put meagre rations on the table. The fight for rights and living wages for migrant workers, including strikes and sit-ins are detailed with care in the book, giving us plenty to think about in terms of our own modern economic conditions. The story is a grim one, devoid of any sugar coating or unlikely lucky breaks. But it is also a story about the values of family, of standing up for moral principles, and of accepting love even when it is least expected. You won't walk away from this book feeling happy, but I think you will feel happy that you read it and took the time to consider the lessons of the past.

This was a phenomenal story about the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. This topic is something I have not researched or read about. It was an eye opening journey and this was a very emotional book to read. It makes you think of the hardships and struggles these people faced during that time. An emotional decision was made to survive and live a better life. It makes you think of how hard it was to achieve the American Dream, especially since it is often handed to us without any effort. We sometimes take that for granted. I appreciated the look back into history that the book is representing. I expected nothing less from this phenomenal author. If you are familiar with Kristin Hannah's other riveting tales, then you will enjoy reading this one as well.

*I received an ARC digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

Historical fiction is sometimes hard to read when it portrays the reader's own country. How many people actually want to read about the trials and tribulations of their countrymen? This is not a quick, easy read. Hannah doesn't hold anything back in this book. All of the angst, pain, and suffering are there on the pages. The reader doesn't have any choice but to experience those emotions right alongside the characters. This story pays homage to all of those who lived through those trials and provides modern readers with a glimpse into their world. However, Hannah ensures that the book is not all gloom and doom. It is also a book about discovery, determination, family, love, and values. There is an extensive amount of research exhibited throughout the book but it is not force fed. It is intricately woven into the plot. This book deserves to be put on the same shelf as The Grapes of Wrath.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Kristin Hannah delivers another winner with a historical fiction novel that taps into the strength of past generations and gives hope to current generations. If you love historical fiction and books with a strong female character, you will love Kristin Hannah’s new novel “The Four Winds”. Spanning the 1920s through the 1930s, this novel covers historical events like the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression and the California migrant experience.
Elsa is viewed as the sickly and unattractive member of her family. Relegated to her bedroom and living in the shadows of her family, she dreams of a better life like the one’s she reads about in her favorite novels – a family, a home, maybe even college or a writing career. The reader follows Elsa’s journey through the traumatic events of the 20s and 30s, across Texas into California, from meek daughter to a strong woman, mother and leader.
“The Four Winds” is incredibly relevant to current events and the difficulties we are experiencing as a country during this pandemic. The hardships endured in this book and the strength and perseverance of the characters gave me hope that we can endure, and even thrive, from our current experiences.

Many thanks to Netgalley and publishers for providing this review copy.

The Four Winds is another epic journey from Kristin Hannah. Based on hope and love and fight this is the story of Elsa and her fight to live and thrive. Beautiful and heart wrenching, another win from Hannah.

A historical fiction story of the Dust Bowl, the drought, the Great Depression and the “Okies” that migrated to California for a better life. It’s a story of the indomitable spirit of the American farm families that loved the cruel and harsh land that betrayed them. It’s about hope and dreams, of finding a way out ...

Beaten down by the Texas farmland she has come to love, and has worked her fingers to the bone for, Elsa heads to California hoping for a better life for her children Ant and Lareda. When they get to the land of “milk and honey”, they are not welcomed. Work is hard and the pay is small. Yet Elsa perseveres, but sometimes a person has to stand up and say enough is enough! A story of a brave woman that will do anything to save her children. A story of hope in the midst of unbearable circumstances. This story is utterly heartbreaking, but a story that shows great courage in devastating conditions.

Wow. Wow wow wow. What a wonderful reimagining of Depression Era and Post-Depression America, and especially poignant during the ongoing COVID pandemic! It started a bit slow for me but the ending is so worth it. This was my first Kristin Hannah book and she was able to breathe life into the characters and link the story together so well from start to finish!! I seriously would recommend this book to everyone.

This book follows Elsa, a woman from the Texas panhandle in the 1920s and 1930s, and her family's experiences and hardships during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. She faces the difficult to decision of leaving their beloved, but dead, farmland and venturing to California, where there is the whisper of employment and a better life. What they find there is unimaginable and requires Elsa to draw on her strength and courage to help her family survive.

This is my fourth Kristin Hannah book, and her beautiful writing never disappoints. The descriptions of the Dust Bowl and the conditions the migrants found themselves in in California were vivid and eye-opening to me.

Elsa is also a well-developed and complex character, and the secondary characters served to truly complete her picture. This is a story of Elsa discovering herself and finding that she is a strong and fierce woman. She struggled with her own internal insecurities, as well as the external issues forced upon her, but she faced it all with such fortitude for her children. The story is mostly told from Elsa's point of view, but I loved that we also got some narration from her daughter Loreda's point of view as well. She is thirteen for the majority of the book, and, while this is certainly a story about the Dust Bowl and western migrants, it also very much about their mother-daughter relationship. I was really drawn to that aspect of the story; Loreda was stubborn and at-times bratty or even cruel to her mother, but Elsa refused to let Loreda push her away through these difficult times. The anger, disappointment, frustration, as well as the unconditional and unrelenting love present in a mother/daughter relationship is something that is consistent through all eras in history.

While I enjoyed this book, it did not necessarily draw me in immediately as the pacing was a bit slow. However, I think it was necessary to allow the full story to be illustrated for the reader and was still compelling overall.

I'd recommend this book if you are interested in character-driven historical fiction with strong female leads.

Trigger warnings: racism, extreme poverty, murder

Elsinore "Elsa" Martinelli has never been special. She's not pretty, or loved, or remarkable. She grows up in post-WWI Texas when wheat is sold at a high price and life is good for farmers. She is a dreamer, and her first contact with Rafe, the first man who looks at her twice, results in her pregnancy.

After her shotgun wedding into an Italian family, Elsa learns to be a farm wife instead of a rich farmer's daughter. Her appreciation for the Martinellis taking her in after being disowned by her own family drives her to become a hardworking farmer. She starts to love the land as her in-laws do, even though her husband seems more and more discontent. Their marriage is not a happy one, but Elsa finds comfort in her small children and her surrogate parents.

While the Great Depression takes its toll on America, the rains stop and the fields dry up. Loreda Martinelli is the result of Elsa's shotgun wedding, and Rafe's stories inspire her to become a dreamer like her young mother. Loreda wants nothing more than to leave agriculture behind, but Rafe tells her that Elsa and his parents will never leave the farm.

Dust storms plague the area. Leaflets begin to appear advertising California as "the land of milk and honey," and many farms in the area are abandoned or for sale. The family continues to struggle as crops and livestock die off. Elsa must make a hard decision -- do they stay and starve or leave for the unknown in California?

As events become increasingly dire, Elsa and Loreda are drawn into a fight for workers' unions led by the Communist party. They have trouble getting support from their fellow workers because striking is difficult for people who are starving.

Elsa's story of perseverance through hard times may be what the world needs right now. Those who are grappling with current events may take comfort in Elsa's struggle, but they could also be overwhelmed by the combination of the two. Unfortunately, the novel is rather plot-light so some readers may find themselves bored.

Recommended for fans of historical sagas and early twentieth century stories.

The Four Winds tells the heartbreaking story of a Dust Bowl family and their amazing survival abilities in the face of insurmountable odds. Kristin Hannah has delivered another well-researched, readable and engrossing historical fiction novel. You will be swept into the lives of the main characters as they navigate from the dust storms of Texas to the cotton fields of California and work to overcome prejudice and entrapment in a system that benefits growers at the expense of human beings. You will be reminded that most of the progress in our country has been made on the backs of those with little power, but the human spirit triumphs!

Love Kristin Hannah books. Her books are the best. You become so engross with the book that nothing else matters until your done. Definitely will need a box of tissues.

I know that Kristin Hannah is a beloved author among the Bookstagram community but I tried reading The Nightingale so many times and just couldn't get into it. This put me off trying The Great Alone but I decided to give The Four Winds a shot when I saw the time period it covered. Living through The Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic causes me to more deeply reflect on previous periods of hardship, wondering how people lived day to day, especially how other mothers managed their families and households in such strained times.

Set amidst two overlapping and devastating periods of American history, The Great Depression (August 1929 – March 1933) and The Dust Bowl (1930 - 1936), The Four Winds gave me great insight into a time period and American migrant experience (Midwest migrating to California) that I didn't know much about. Author Kristin Hannah also gave a bit of background into how these American migrants displaced Mexican migrants and expertly showed the grassroots organization of workers' rights groups. I am sure I learned about it in high school American history classes but despite being an "A" student, I don't think I retained a single fact from my history classes. However, as I get older, history becomes more relatable, tangible, and interesting.

While reading The Four Winds I thought the eleven-day dust storms and descriptions of dust pneumonia were devastating but it was the detailed description of lack of jobs, fair wages, and adequate housing that was the most wretched. Sentences like "Not every day, but most days she worked twelve hours for fifty cents." are somehow both unsurprising and shocking. Hannah's previous novels may not have worked for me but the superb writing and storytelling in The Four Winds has made me a fan.

The Four Winds
Kristin Hannah
February 2, 2021

In 1921 Elsa Wolcott found herself alone much of the time. As a teen she had suffered from Rheumatic Fever, an illness that would usually take one’s life. Elsa had stayed quiet, took what medicine that gave her and read when she wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t allowed to finish her schooling for fear the damage to her heart would return. Her sisters were beautiful. They were social and dated often. Their mother made certain that hair, clothing and makeup were up with the times.
As the story begins, Elsa is about to celebrate her 25th birthday. She was certain that her dreams of going to college, becoming a wife and mother could never come to light. Her parents were quite strict with her. Elsa was tall, thin, blond and had exceptional blue eyes. Her dress was plain and that of the spinster she was destined to be. The family lived in a large home with a maid, Although Elsa had aspirations of bidding farewell to her parents and venturing out on her own, she knew that her job would be Maria’s relief when she retired.
This inspiring journal continues with the life that Elsa prepared for herself when she found herself pregnant by a younger, handsome man she had met while walking one evening. Her father packed all she owned and dropped Elsa at the farm of Rafe and his parents, Tony and Rose Martinelli. From this point this story becomes a diary of Elsa’s world. She learns to cook, clean, plow fields and plant wheat. Most of all ,we find her becoming a wonderful mother who truly finds her new family a godsend.
The story was marvelous and the method of Hannah’s painting a clear picture of the Dust Bowl’s appearance in Texas; frightening. Day by day and week by week the family worked to salvage what they could of the farm, the animals and their livelihood. I was completely overwhelmed by her words and the plight she told. Aware of the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression and the infamous history that flattened Texas to Nebraska via years of school, I could not imagine what daily life might convey. This is a very well written book that should not be missed.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is published by St Martin’s Press. It will be available on February 2, 2021. I am humbled that they authorized me to read and review via NetGalley. This past year I have read many books, this novel, The Four Winds is in a separate category. One that reflects how I felt when I have read such classics from Pearl Buck, Barbara Kingsolver, or Herman Hesse. I am certain to think of Elsa’s voyage often. It brought me to tears at times, I venture to guess other readers will react with the same intensity. Be strong...

In her book The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah has written another heartbreaking historical fiction novel that educates as well as entertains. The story of Elsa Martinelli's journey from unloved daughter to underappreciated wife and mother to brave warrior standing up for justice is beautifully told. While the story is difficult to read at times, it is worth it.

Elsa Martinelli and her children can no longer survive in the dust storms of Texas, so she packs them up and heads west in the hopes of finding work and a home in California. What she finds instead is discrimination, unfair wages, unlivable conditions, and back-breaking labor. Add to all this an angry daughter who challenges her constantly, and you end up with a woman almost completely beaten by life. However, Elsa finds the strength to keep working in an attempt to provide for her children.

This book is hard to read, not because it is poorly written or boring but because it is so incredibly sad. It contains one sorrowful event after another. Injustice is followed by more injustice. After surviving hardship in Texas, the characters face worse hardships in California. While reading, I kept hoping to see something good for these characters, but instead there was just more sadness. Honestly, I almost stopped reading it because it was depressing me. I kept reading, though, because I was invested in the characters.

Kristin Hannah is talented at developing characters. Each main character in this book (Elsa, Loreda, Jack) is vividly depicted. Elsa and Loreda's emotions are believable and understandable in their circumstances. The reader develops real sympathy for them.

This story is one of survival, bravery, and love. The characters persevere through the worst of circumstances, and they do so without losing sight of who they are. They stumble at times and almost give up or stop believing in themselves, but they fight their way back and find a way to keep going. Love is the one constant that helps them through it all. As Elsa states in her journal, "Love is what remains when everything else is gone." Love for her children is what makes Elsa a warrior in this book, fighting for a better life for them. She "believes in an end she can't see and fights for it."

I did not love every second of this read because of the sadness, but in the end I recognize the beauty of this book. This tale is well-crafted and teaches some valuable lessons. It also educates the reader about a very grim time in history. I would recommend this book to all Kristin Hannah fans and any historical fiction reader that appreciates a well-researched and well-constructed story. Just be prepared to be emotionally impacted.