Probably closer to a 4.5 but I’m rounding down for reasons I will explain. Ok so I want to start this off by saying I truly got sucked into this book, I read it 48 hours and it’s over 400 pages but Kristin Hannah’s writing is always so beautiful it never feels that long. She created such vivid imagery that I could almost taste the dust and feel the heat of 1930s Texas.

Reading this book fresh out of 2020 created an added interesting layer, because many are facing financial hardship and struggle right now due to a global pandemic, and while not exactly akin to what happened during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, it certainly gave some added perspective.

Like many of her other books, there is a general melancholy undertone and a few highly highly emotional moments. But for me, I just wasn’t “wowed” like I was with say, The Great Alone. I kept waiting for something to happen that would make this a five star book for me and I will say (without spoilers) at approximately 93% through it was happening and I was blown away (pun fully intended). Personally, I think that’s too long to have to wait though to be completely astounded by a book which is why I didn’t round up to a five.

All in all, I think fans of Kristin Hannah’s will love this latest book from her. It is truly beautifully written, and I think it will give readers a chance to really think about what we have and what we value and maybe even take for granted.

Thanks to Netgalley, Kristin Hannah and St. Martin’s Press for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Four Winds is a sweeping saga about a woman who is much stronger than she realizes and the relationships she has with her family. Elsa loves fiercely and does everything in her power to try and create a better life for her family during the dust bowl era. The novel follows Elsa from the dust bowl in Texas to the fields of California as she searches for a way to support her family.

Kristin Hannah writes beautifully and this novel reflects her scrupulous use of language in describing the harrowing difficulties of living through the Dust Bowl and the depression of the 1930s. Elsa Martinelli is from a well-to-do family but she has always felt out of place in her family and its society. After falling for a young, working-class Italian, Elsa marries and finds the family she has always longed for in his parents, who own a farm. But, as the dust storms ravage the farm and her children's health, Elsa is forced to make the hard choice to leave the farm and travel to California, where she hopes to build a better life for herself and her children. As anyone who has read The Grapes of Wrath knows, the life she is about to enter is ruthless and unjust. Elsa faces more hardship and discouragement than most people could possibly bear, but she continues through this, providing the example that her daughter needs to succeed in this unforgiving environment.
This novel reflects careful research. The characters are well-drawn and true. The descriptions of the devastation to the farmland and the treatment of the individuals in the squatter tent cities is heartbreaking.
This novel is a definite recommend to readers of historical fiction and novels with strong female characters.

Kristin Hannah has done it again. Delving once again into the world of historical fiction, she takes us on a trip through the Dust Bowl of the early 1900s, a period in which I am embarrassed to admit I did not know much about. Picture the Great Depression. Millions of people out of work, starving, homeless, desperate to feed their families. Farmers that for decades that have thrived and been able to provide a solid living, are now struggling to get by on a daily basis. Elsa Martinelli never imagined that she would be a farmer's wife. Yet after an unexpected pregnancy, she finds herself raising her two children on a Texas farm with her husband and in-laws. For many years, times were good, until they changed on a dime. Elsa and her family are now struggling to make ends meet and keep the farm alive. It all becomes too much for Elsa's husband, who ultimately ends up abandoning the family. At first, Elsa tries to keep going, but it soon becomes clear that something must change.
Packing up the family, Elsa heads west, to the land of opportunity....California. With visions of prosperity and security in her future, Elsa soon finds that life is even more difficult for the relocated 'Okies." Forced to live in crowded camps and work from dusk to dawn, Elsa soon realizes that the American Dream appears to be just that....a dream. It is now up to Elsa as the head of the family to model the resilience and fortitude that will propel her family through these harrowing times.
Another solid read from Kristin Hannah. While it lacked some of the spirit of "The Nightingale" or "The Great Alone", it was a fascinating look into the lives of Americans back in the darkest of days. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC.

I don't know if I even have the right words for this book. I read it in two days. I finished it in tears. When you are reading a book and you can actually feel the dust in your mouth and on your face, the water seeping through your clothes, chilling you to the bone, you know that you have fallen into a fantastic book. Just thinking about what all these migrant workers went through during the dust bowl and depression, makes me cry. Ms. Hannah perfectly put me into the lives of Elsa, Loreda, Ant and all the other poor families that suffered.

Elsa lacked so much self-esteem, brought on by her awful parents, that she could not see just what a wonderful, strong woman she was. Her daughter, though at times I wanted to throttle her, was a testament to her mother. The women that held up their families in the worst devastation anyone can imagine, made me proud to be a woman. The story takes us from the dust storms in Texas to the people picking crops in California. It makes you think twice about the migrant workers and what they go through to put food on our tables.

Yes, I ended up in tears. I still tear up thinking of the ending. This just might be my favorite Kristin Hannah book yet and that says a lot. It comes out on February 2. Get it.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this wonderful book.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is shaping up to be a top book of 2021. It follows a stubborn mother as she navigates the fallout from both her hasty marriage and the widespread collapse of the economy and ecosystem during the 1930s.

Elsa, our protagonist, is a complex woman who grounds this novel in a believable central character. Her devotion to her land and her family (especially her children) is immeasurable. It is heartbreaking to watch her struggle for a better life as she first stays, then flees, the only world she knows in north Texas as the Dust Bowl ravages her land and her life. The other characters, especially her children, are wonderfully rendered as well. This may be a work of fiction, but its depictions of generational poverty and relentless inequality are especially resonant in today’s world.

5/5: A beautifully written work of historical fiction. From the endless plains of the Texas panhandle to the rolling hills of crop-studded California, the landscapes are vivid and immersive. The characters are strong and weak, complexly human in every way. The setting is at once distant and utterly present, as it will no doubt conjure images of current migrant crises, climate change, rampant poverty, the housing collapse, and widespread disease and fear. However, The Four Winds is a testament to the strength of family, both blood and found, and the power of resistance and tenacity in the face of oppression and isolation.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Another exceptional piece of historical fiction from a writer who doesn’t disappoint. The setting is the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s, on the Texas panhandle. Elsie is overlooked by her parents who focus on her two pretty sisters. Already 25 and sheltered after an illness as a youth, Elsie ventures out and meets Rafe, a young dreamer. Elsie becomes pregnant, and her parents disown her. Working hard, Elsie endears herself into the lives of Rafe’s parents. When the crippling sand storms force many off the land, Elsie leaves with her daughter and son and faces even more hardship. This novel is filled with examples of courage, resiliency, and strength in the face of terrible challenges. Elsie’s story will break your heart, and has relevancy for the hardships faced by immigrants today. I highly recommend this novel, and thank NetGalley for the ARC.

It took me a few weekss to write this review after reading The Four Winds. It may take several more for me to fully process the depth of this beautifully written novel. This is one of those books that will linger in your consciousness for a very long time. It's complex and rich in character and explores the dynamic between a mother and daughter in a way that few have been able to accomplish. This is not a HEA story. Even weeks after reading it, I still feel the depth of the emotional journey. The Four Winds is a stunningly beautiful book that is worth every shed tear.

This book is lovely. Absolutely lovely. Kristin Hannah is extremely talented with historical fiction.

This book is about fierce love, empowerment, perseverance and the importance of human beings coming together. I sobbed and I am still solving. This is such an incredible read. If you liked The Nightingale you are going to LOVE this.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Again, Kristin Hannah will reduce you to a pile of tears with her latest book, The Four Winds. Here it will be with the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and it will not let you go. What Hannah does so remarkably well in her heart-wrenching novels is give us character we absolutely love and root for until the bitter end. She does not disappoint in the character of Elsa Martinelli and her children, Loreda and Ant. Elsa and her children endure brutal conditions on their farm in Texas and eventually make the decision to move out to California. There they are met with even more brutal conditions, but Elsa pulls on the love for her children to make her strong. Fight for a better day for them. And when it is all over. . .love remains.

In the author's notes, she points out that when she wrote this, she never anticipated the pandemic and how our lives would come to repeat history. Yet, here we are, and there's much to be learned from the character in this book and our own experiences today. When all else is gone, love remains. Lean into that.

My *only* small gripe is that this tends to follow the same kind of structural journey as The Great Alone in terms of it's ups and downs. However, Ms. Hannah, I do not care. I'm sure this book will end up at the top of my list at the end of this year.

Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor and now try to find a lighter book for my next read of 2021.

I had high hopes for this book, Kristin Hannah has set the bar pretty high after reading "The Great Alone", and I was not disappointed.
This is the story of a family living through the dustbowl and depression era, who then become "okies" who have migrated to California. Ms. Hannah has a gift for taking you through the history of the era yet keeping the story crisp and relevant. When I read "Grapes of Wrath" I remember understanding the sadness of the dustbowl era, but in this book you felt it. The characters are very well crafted and are complex, unlikeable and yet lovable too.
While this is not a topic I would have thought I was interested in, after reading this book I definitely want to understand more about this time period.
Once of Kristin Hannah's best books yet, 5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well this seals it. I am officially a Kristin Hannah superfan. This was my fourth novel by Hannah and every single one of them has received a 5-star review from me AND made me sob.

The Four Winds tells the story of Elsa, a young woman who was unloved by her parents and never felt at home in her small Texas town in the early 19oos. When she marries into to a farm family, she falls in love with the land that provides for her — only for the dust bowl to betray her with drought and dust storms that make her children hungry and sick. She takes her family across the country to a new life in California, but conditions somehow worsen. Elsa, her young son Antony, and her headstrong teenage daughter Lorada — like the other hundreds of impoverished families that fled to California in the Great Depression only to live in shanty towns — are treated as skum and paid little for their work. When Loreda and Elsa meet a young worker's rights activist (ahem, communist), they find their voice against the greedy big farmers — but at what cost?

I absolutely adored Elsa and Loreda and really took away the true message of this book — a mother's love is the strongest, unbreakable bond.

What a book! The author’s note at the end says it all. Although The Four Winds is centered around the Great Depression, the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters in the book are not much different that what we are experiencing right now during a global pandemic. There is fatigue, sadness, and heartbreak but also resilience, kindness, and small glimmers of hope. Kristin Hannah told a beautiful story that I think every needs to read.

Thank you to Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Another Kristen Hannah masterpiece! This sweeping story of Texas in the 1930s during one of the most depressing times in our country's history. This book will grab your heart and never let it go. I finished it a few days ago and yet I still find myself thinking about the courage and bravery of Elsa. She will remain one of my most beloved characters. I've read all of Ms. Hannah's books and I feel that this one is her best.

I'm surely not the first, and I definitely won't be the last to say that Kristin Hannah has done it again. She has created another masterpiece. You can almost taste the gritty, dust filled air, and can practically feel the sun beating down as if you were there on the farm in mid 1930's Texas. The circumstance of real life in 2020 and now into 2021 where hope is on the horizon, but we've all been touched in some way by a devastating global pandemic, it makes it a bit easier to put yourself in the shoes of Hannah's characters as they face the Great Depression and life in the Dust Bowl Era. I was up two nights in a row reading well into the wee hours agonize over the decisions these folks had to make, stay or go west? I don't know what I'd do if I were alive then, but I do know what I did early morning on Jan 1, 2021... I read the last chapters through tears and then cried some more reading the author's note. Oof. All the emotions! Just what we've come to expect!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy.

I am not a fan of Four Winds. Ms Hannah has overly researched the Depression and Dust Bowl years on the Great Plains and cranked out a "light" version of Grapes of Wrath. Every single bad thing that could happen to this family, DID happen. The misery and misfortune that came out of this book are oppressive. The dialogue is also middle-school level and the details are just overwhelming. Telling me exactly what is in the pantry is seriously overkill. I enjoyed two of Hannah's books, The Nightingale and The Great Alone, but now I am wondering if it is because I was on Vicodin for knee and leg surgery.

“As we know, there are lessons to be learned from history. Hope to be derived from hardships faced before...” from the author’s note at the end of the book.
This book is relentless, like the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Kristin Hannah presents these events so vividly I could almost taste the dust, feel the pain of hunger, the seeming endless dust storms and heat. While this book was begun before the pandemic of 2020 it is a fitting read for our times.

“Hope is a coin I carry: an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love. There were times in my journey when it felt as if that penny and the hope it represented were the only things that kept me going.”

Kristin Hannah once again delivers with this sweeping epic novel of the devastation of the Dust Bowl, the migration West, and the fight for survival among Americans.

Elsa Wolcott is a privileged but lonely girl, treated with indifference and outright disdain by her family because of her homely appearance and her health, weakened by rheumatic fever. One day, emboldened by her need to be loved and her deceased, beloved grandfather’s intonation to “ be brave,” she makes a decision that radically alters her life, alienating her from her family. That decision pushes her into a hasty marriage with a reluctant groom and binds her to the Martinelli family, a hardworking family of Italian immigrants and their beloved farm.

Elsa learns to be a farmer’s wife and her hardworking ethic earns her the respect and love of her in-laws-if not the love of her husband, Rafe. When an unexpected tragedy occurs and the devastation of the Dust Bowl threatens the health and well-being of her family, Elsa boldly decides to journey West to California in the hopes of a better life for those she loves.

Elsa faces new challenges as she tries to seize hold of her portion of the “American Dream” and make a life for herself and her children. Despair and economic depression haunt her at every turn in her journey. Elsa will need to become the woman her grandfather knew she could be-a brave warrior whose indomitable spirit just might save them all.

Hannah encapsulates this time in history with stunning depth and accuracy and explores the parallels between the Depression era and today. In Elsa, she creates a portrait of the American worker, as she fights against greed, prejudice, and the right to a living wage. Emotional and riveting, I highly recommend this novel.

Elsa Martinelli was unloved by her parents. When she finds herself pregnant, they drop her off at the fathers house and walk right out of her life. Now she finds herself in a family she doesn’t know with a baby on the way. And, oh yeah, it’s the beginning of the Great Depression. Life only gets harder when drought hits and she must choose between staying with the only people who have ever loved her and trying to make a better life for her children out West.

Kristin Hannah is a master of historical fiction and this latest novel does not disappoint! While reading I would find myself very thirsty because her description of the Dust Bowl era was so real. I was so invested in the characters’ lives from the very beginning.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance readers copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley for an arc of The Four Winds. I don’t normally like historical fiction but oh my goodness, I could not put this book down. It was amazing and heartbreaking. I really got attached to Elsa and the kids. I highly recommend this one.