In her usual exception way, Kristin Hannah presents a wealth of information about our history in The Four Winds. This book pulls at your heart as a mother and an American.

Despite an early impression of generalized description and dialogue, I came to like this book a lot. Set in Texas just before and during the drought and Dust Bowl conditions of the 1930's, we follow the life of Elsa, who has grown up in a prosperous home where love is in short supply, for her at least. The only person who seems to have any encouraging words were her Grandfather, years passed.
When circumstances force her to leave this home, she is taken in by the Martinellis, immigrant Italian farmers, and learns there the true meaning of family.
After some years of real prosperity, more fulfilling than any her rich merchant father could provide, the onset of drought, and sheer human weakness, conspire to send her west in order to save her son from sickness caused by the ever present dust.
Faced with deprivations, bigotry, diminishing prospects, and unimaginable loss, Elsa must now draw upon strengths and courage she never believes she has. Despite the increasing hardships Elsa must endure, she and her children also encounter friendship, community, and compassion. One of my favorite characters is a town librarian.
The Four Winds is a timely novel, based on accounts of Americans who, having had their livelihoods ruined by drought, find themselves refugees in their own country, unwanted, and ultimately exploited. I ultimately found it compelling, provocative, and emotionally engaging.

Oh goodness. What can I even say about this book?

In my opinion, KH is not renowned for her elaborately crafted syntax or her beautifully lyrical sentence structure. Her writing could actually be described as simple or even pretty basic. However, the masterpiece that all of those "simple" sentences create is what makes her books SO GOOD. No hesitation FIVE STARS good!

From my first tears 25% through to my sobs reading the author's note in the back, I cried several times. It has got the KH signature stamp of emotion, let me tell you.

Elsa is a CHAMP of a character and I loved getting to follow along with her journey. She is probably one of the realest, most kick-butt characters KH has written.

I think readers will find this book eerily similar to the times we currently live in. To issues that (still) exist among society right now. The Martinelli family represents many things--loyalty, dreams, courage, perseverance, HOPE... but above all, it is a story of family, those we share blood with and those we do not.

5/5

It is the 1930s and Elsa Martinelli is living through the Dust Bowl in the Texas panhandle. Despite her love for the farm on which she lives, she recognizes that she must leave to "go West" like so many of her neighbors, for the health and safety of her children, Loreda and Anthony. Unfortunately, life in California is not what they had hoped. Living in tents, being shunned by Californians as "Okies," and scrounging for work.

I remember reading The Grapes of Wrath in high school, but I don't remember it hitting me as hard as this book did. This is my first read by Kristin Hannah and it blew me away. Initially, I struggled to like Elsa (she didn't make the best decisions in the early parts of the novel), but watching her grow as she lived through hardship after hardship...I felt my heart break with hers each and every time. I'm usually not big on historical fiction, but this is a must-read.

A well researched historical fiction book. This story is set in the time of the "Dust Bowl," a time that is rarely written about anymore. Outside of The Grapes of Wrath I don't think I've read any books that take place at this time. One can almost taste and smell the dust that invades everything. Kristin Hannah always writes about strong women and this book is no different. A well written story and researched story.

During the Great Depression, it's up to Elsa Martinelli to keep her family together. They have no choice but to flee the Dust Bowl and go to California, but they find that life isn't easy there either. Hannah paints a vivid picture of the anti-migrant discrimination and unfair working conditions the Martinellis face and the strength that Elsa and her daughter Lorena show in the toughest of circumstances.

Kristin Hannah is a wonderful writer, and I was so excited to receive an ARC of this book! From the first few pages, Hannah drew me into Elsa's world. I loved her writing style and attention to research - they really created the world of the Depression. As in Hannah's previous work, the strong female characters of Elsa and Lorena were truly inspiring. The story was well-paced, with some surprises and conflicts to keep the reader's attention.

As we struggle through the hard times of the COVID economy, I know that this story will resonate with readers, as it did with me. I hope it will motivate readers to support their communities and neighbors rather than making the same selfish mistakes of the past. If you enjoy historical fiction, this book is not to be missed.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am speechless over what I have just finished reading! This is Author Kristen Hannah at her finest with a captivating story that covers a wide range of emotions and family dynamics that takes place in the panhandle of Texas beginning in 1921.

Elsinor "Elsa" Wolcott grew up in a wealthy family with two older and much prettier sisters and her parents never let her forget it. Elsa stood 6 feet tall, was very thin and considered herself very unattractive. Elsa was sick with a fever when she was a young teen and her parents turned her into an invalid and never let her do anything. Elsa marries Raffaello "Rafe" Martinelli and begins life as a farmer's wife. Life on the farm is a struggle with the depression and then the dust bowl era which forces Elsa to make a decision about staying there or heading west. That is all I will say because I do not want to reveal any spoilers.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this truly remarkable and unforgettable book in exchange for an honest review. I predict that this will be one of the top reads for 2021.

It took quite awhile for me to get into this one. Once she leaves home I cared a bit more. Although she goes through many hardships the main character is Not a sympathetic one. I cared about the Martnellis and her little boy the most. This seems very well researched. The details during the devastation brought by nature and living in tent city were very well done
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for this arc

It’s quite possible that my favorite book of the year is one that doesn’t release until next year, but I’m so excited to share this touching book with you!

As soon as I saw that Kristin Hannah had a new book coming out, I knew it was one that I wanted to read and then when I saw that it was set around the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl I wanted to read it even more.

SUMMARY
The Four Winds is set in Texas in 1934 when millions of people are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are struggling to survive as the Dust Bowl, one of the darkest periods of the Great Depression has arrived.

Elsa Martinelli was the sheltered daughter of an upper-class family of prominence that does not accept her and quickly disowns her when she becomes pregnant. She marries Rafe Martinelli and finds acceptance and love with his parents on their farm. Eventually life becomes unbearably hard and uncertain as the farm struggles when the drought hits. Elsa is abandoned once again and eventually has to decide if she should fight for the land she loves or go west to California in search of a better life for herself and her children.

California turns out to be far from the perfect land it was promised to be. It is ripe with its own struggles, especially for migrant families looking for a better life. Elsa and her children face prejudices and injustices as they struggle to survive and eek out a meager living.

Elsa proves herself to be a loving, compassionate mother and a courageous, indomitable woman who will stop at nothing to provide for her children.

WHAT I LOVED
Honestly, I loved everything about this book!!

Most of all, I loved the characters, who are flawed, but so very strong.

I love that I learned a lot about this period of time that I didn’t know about before. Reading The Four Winds made me want to research and learn more about the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and the migration of farmers to California and how they were treated.

I love that I could see so many parallels to struggles that many people are facing today.

I loved that I connected with the story and the characters in The Four Winds on an emotional level.

I also loved reading the note from Kristen Hannah at the end of the book. It was truly touching.

THEMES
The themes addressed in The Four Winds include the resilience of the human spirit, self-acceptance, inner courage and strength. It also addresses love and self-acceptance and the importance of family.

MY ONLY REGRET
My only regret is that I read The Four Winds on my kindle. This is a book that I would have loved to have held in my hands. In fact, I’ll probably re-read it when it comes out in print just so that I can do just that.

This beautiful, heartfelt book belongs on my bookshelf among my favorites!

QUOTE
“She’d rather reach for love and fail than never reach at all.”

RATING
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
I received a copy of The Four Winds through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to St. Martin’s Press and to the talented Kristin Hannah for this opportunity.

3.5 stars, rounded up.

The Four Winds follows Elsa, whose family has taught her that she's unlovable. Things begin to change for the better when she meets Rafe, but then becomes much, much worse as the Great Depression begins and the Dust Bowl rips through Texas.

This is a really challenging book to rate because I absolutely loved the first 10%, and I loved (and cried through) the last 10%. Hannah creates such a strong sense of place, especially on the farm and amidst all the dust storms. I empathized with Elsa at the beginning and my own heart was breaking as she tried to overcome her families' prejudice against her.

Unfortunately, the middle dragged for me. It's very bleak, and felt pretty repetitive. Something bad happened but Elsa was strong, then another bad thing happened and Elsa was strong, etc. While Elsa did change and grow, most of that growth happened at the very end of the book.

I also feel like I need to caveat this with saying Kristin Hannah's books have been hit or miss for me. I absolutely loved The Nightingale but The Great Alone wasn't for me. Which is an unpopular opinion, so others might love this one too!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's press for a copy of this book!

Kristin Hannah's latest novel delivers her signature style: a woman seizing her power, chasing her dreams, and realizing her identity in the face of huge challenges and trying circumstances.

The novel follows Elsa, a misunderstood ugly duckling in her family of small-town Texas socialites in the 1930s. Chasing her dreams leads her out of her parents' control and in leaves her in the family way. Her mother and father refuse to shelter her from the scandal and leave her with her new in-laws, the Martinellis, who reluctantly accept her into their home for the sake of their unborn grandchild. As they get to know Elsa's work ethic and fierce love for family, their resentment transforms into a closeness that nourishes them all.

But times are tough in the Texas panhandle. The depression squeezes the economy, while wind and drought raze the land and starve the crops. Elsa and her daughter Loreda alternate narrative points of view, Elsa trying desperately to hold her family together, and Loreda dreaming big dreams that founder on the rocks of reality.

Hannah writes with an earnest style that feels organic to the novel's time period, but can feel a little ingenuous to a modern reader. Once you sink into the story, though, it's easy to identify with the characters, and it's a profound look at an America that weathered recession, illness, depression, fearmongering, and migrants' and immigrants' rights issues. In those aspects, it's astonishing how much the modern American reader will feel right at home.

Really good read! Insight into a part of history I didn't know much about. It would have been interesting to hear how these people/areas were affected by what was happening in Europe, too. I also would have liked more closure around Elsa's birth family - it seemed unlikely that she'd never hear from/see any of them ever again (especially her sisters).

I had high hopes for this, but I didn't love it. The first half was interesting, but the second half was a slow, bleak slog. Little actually happens and the ending is so manipulative even though I knew it was coming. Too predictable.

The following review was posted on my blog (www.blogginboutbooks.com) on 12.02.20:

Because of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever, 25-year-old Elsa Wolcott has long been treated as an invalid by her wealthy family. Lanky, awkward, and shy, she figures she'll always be a spinster, slowly suffocating to death in her parents' home. She's shocked, then, when she meets Rafe Martinelli, an Italian-American farmer, who pays her the kind of attention she's only read about in romance novels. The Wolcotts will never accept him as a suitor—he's a blue collar worker, a penniless dreamer, and a "foreigner" to boot. Elsa and Rafe's secret romance turns into a hasty marriage when a pregnant Elsa is kicked out of her parents' home. Although the Martinellis are not thrilled with the situation either, they accept Elsa into their fold, soon recognizing what the Wolcotts never have—Elsa is a quick learner, a hard worker, and a person adept at making the best of a bad situation.

By 1934, Elsa is a poor farmer's wife, who is beloved by her in-laws but ignored by her parents and treated with indifference by a husband who is increasingly distant and depressed. When Rafe abandons Elsa, their young children, and his family's farm, she is left to struggle along with the senior Martinellis to turn a profit from the dying land. Between the choking dust, the country's desperate financial situation, and the constant work of farming and caring for a family, Elsa is at the end of her rope. Many of the residents in her Texas town have already fled the Dust Bowl, headed for California, the land of opportunity. Should Elsa stay or go? Can she really find salvation in The Golden State? What will become of her, her elderly in-laws, and her young children?

Kristin Hannah has become known for writing sweeping, emotional sagas about families fighting to survive in difficult situations. Her newest, The Four Winds (available February 2, 2021), is no exception. With a setting so vivid you can feel grit stinging your eyes, Hannah paints a grim, gut-wrenching picture of life in the Dust Bowl during The Great Depression. There's no more sympathetic character than a tireless mother who will do anything to save her children and Elsa is absolutely that. She's a complex, brave, admirable woman whose determination makes her relatable and root-worthy. While I found Hannah's depiction of "Okie" life in California fascinating, her descriptions are so vivid, so heartbreaking, that I'm not sure I'll ever forget them. The Four Winds concludes with an interesting twist, one I didn't much care for; still, the ending feels not just satisfying, but also hopeful. Despite its bleakness, I found this novel absorbing, moving, and memorable. It's because of books like this that I've become a big Kristin Hannah fan over the last few years. I can't wait to see what she does next!

(Readalikes: Reminds me of other stories about the Dust Bowl and The Great Depression, like The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows, and A Promise to Break by Kathryn Spurgeon)

Grade: B+

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for language (1 F-bomb, plus milder expletives), violence, sexual content, and disturbing subject matter

To the FTC, with love: I received an e-ARC of The Four Winds from the generous folks at St. Martin's Press via those at NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

What a book, the best I have read in a long time. The story of Elsa Martinelli and her family is a beautifully written piece of historical fiction set during the 1930’s. Elsa’s strong character helps them survive through the Dust Bowl, starvation and finally helps her make the decision to go West looking for a better life for her son and daughter. In California, the family endures homelessness, poverty and hard work in the cotton fields for little pay. The author vividly describes the hopelessness, grief, and despair that people were going through, it brings tears to your eyes. Hannah brings the raw emotion of her characters to the words on the page better than most authors. Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC from NetGalley.

Do you have an auto-buy author? Kristin Hannah is my auto-buy author.

Kristin Hannah has been a long time favorite author of mine. Almost every book that I have read by her has rated 4 or 5 stars. In my opinion, her books are worthy of owning. They are well-researched and detailed. Because of these things, I was excited when I heard about The Four Winds and read it quickly.

Unfortunately, this book missed the mark for me. I found it to be long and bleak. There were many points where I wanted to skim the book, but since Hannah is a favorite author of mine I pushed through.

The plot in the second half of the book takes a sharp turn as the main character gets involved with the communist party. The book went downhill from there. The didactic dialogue between characters was tiresome. I also wanted to hear more of the struggle in Texas during the Dustbowl years, but the story moves to California. The Four Winds was almost like reading two different books and it felt disjointed.

This book held many beautiful phrases and moments, but it was also emotionally manipulative. I do not like to be emotionally manipulated by an author who is trying to prove a political point.

The best thing about this book was that it drove me to research for myself this time period in history and for that I am grateful. I do love when historical fiction leads you to your own research.

My heart hurts giving Kristin Hannah 2-stars, but I feel it necessary. I will continue to read books by her in the future and hope for more 5-star reads.

Hannah’s descriptive words transported me to Texas during The Dust Bowl, California during the Gold Rush and the rise of the communist party. I felt the shards of glass when they scraped Elsa’s neck or the longing Elsa had to be loved by anyone in her life. Hannah did an amazing job at capturing the essence of discovering one’s self, the power of one’s voice, the power of mothers. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl is an important time period in American history and Hannah did amazing job explaining this world through her description as well as through Elsa and Loreda’s thoughts. I cried when Elsa finally felt love for the first time with Jack. I cried when Elsa had to say goodbye to her children. I cried when we saw what Loreda did for her mother. I think this is a book that JBH’s readers would love because the essence of the story is the power of mothers; what mothers will do for their children, how to survive. I’ve known about Kristen Hannah because her name is quite recognizable but I’ve never read her.

I have read Kristin Hannah books in the past and am familiar with her ability to thoroughly research and represent a period of time. In this case, she writes about the conditions of the dust bowl, which contributed to the great depression. The second half of the book is spent in southern California where the migrants from several states are forced to work for lower and lower wages, just barely enough to fee their family. And where the residents of California are resentful of the thousands of migrants coming to find a better life.
The main character, Elsa, has had a hard life, both physically and emotionally and Hannah portrays her emotions as well as her iron will with skill, helping the reader to really feel the pain in Elsa's soul. Above all else, Elsa loves her two children and will do anything to protect them, even when her own life is threatened.
While one reviewer stated that through all the misery, there was still hope, I did not leave this book with much hope. The situation on the farm in Texas was untenable, as was the situation in the migrant camps in California. There is great pain and sadness in this book, and without revealing the ending, I would just say that Hannah portrays real life, which is often not neat or pretty and there are no happy endings. While I can't really fault Hannah for this writing, I was hoping for a little bit more light.

It is 1921 in the Texas panhandle town of Dalhart, Elsa Wolcott the oldest of 3 daughters is a 25 yr old spinster who has spent years in enforced solitude due to a childhood illness rheumatoid fever which has left her “fragile”. She takes comfort in her books and her ability to blend into the background. She dreams of having a family with a husband who understands and loves her and having a life. She meets 18 yr old Raffaello Martinelli the day she rebels after cutting her waist length hair chin length and runs out of her house in a red silk flapper gown heading to the speakeasy in town. He was so handsome and he asked to take her on a ride and she was helpless to resist. A couple of assignations later she is pregnant and is disowned by her parents and dropped off at his family home and they are married.
It is 1934 and it has been 4 years since there has been rain in in the plains and they now have 2 kids, a girl Loreda who is 12 and Anthony who is 7. The great depression is in full effect and they can’t grow anything with no rain. Every day they are just trying to survive until the rain comes which is never does. People are starting to flee and head to California where work is supposed to be there for everyone. Elsa has to make a choice should she stay and fight for there land or should she head out like all their neighbors to try to make a better life for her kids.

Oh man this was so good. I really love historical fiction and I forgot how much I love Kristin Hannah’s writing. It was really well researched and just immersed you into that world. It was so engaging and you just feel in love with Elsa, Rose, Tony and especially Loreda and Anthony. It was just so heart-wrenching to read about dust pneumonia from all the dust storms and all the poor people that were just trying to get somewhere they could survive and thrive and be treated like garbage by the townsfolk. It was so sad how these people had to live in tent cities and shacks because people wouldn’t rent to them or consider them for other jobs other than field work. And the greedy growers that knew they could pay the workers whatever they wanted and they would take it because they had families to support and couldn’t turn down the money. I’m not afraid to admit that I was crying while reading the last chapter. It was such a bittersweet but satisfying ending.

Thanks to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book in e-book form. All opinions in this review are my own.

All I can say is OMG!!!!!! Kristin did it again. This book will shake you to the core. So beautifully written. What a tear jearker..