Another beautiful, heartbreaking book by Kristin Hannah! The Four Winds tells a story that everyone should read. I learned about the Dust Bowl in History class, but I don't think I appreciated how truly devastating it was. I can't exactly say I enjoyed this book...It was amazing, but I actually struggled to finish and took a few breaks because it was so depressing. Reading this, you'll truly feel each and every devastating setback the Martinellis face. I'm trying to think of how to explain why it was sadder than some of Kristin Hannah's other books that I loved, and all I can think of is that some of the worst things Elsa experiences are at the hands of her fellow Americans who decided she was an outsider and less than human, because she had fallen on hard times. I think it's difficult to read a book like this in the times we're living in when everything is so divided, but it's an important story to read anyway. I recommend reading it along with a lighter, happier book so you can give yourself some relief.

The Four Winds
by Kristin Hannah (Goodreads Author)
5768412


"It was always about the men. They seemed to think it meant nothing to cook and clean and bear children and tend gardens. But we women of the Great Plains worked from sunup to sundown, too, toiled on wheat farms until we were as dry and baked as the land we loved."
"If I close my eyes sometimes, I swear I can still taste the dust..."

Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is phenomenal. The above quotes sum up much of my feelings and thoughts regarding this book. I was fortunate to be permitted an early read and I thank the publisher, Kristin Hannah, and Net Galley for the opportunity.

Historical Fiction is one of my favorite genres but i had never read a book set in the time of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl phenomenon! This book is so well researched and written that I could feel the wind of my face, with bits of dirt stinging my eyes and feel the grit between my teeth. I also learned more that I had ever known about this time and history and what tremendous hardship and challenges the people on the Great Plains of America in the 1920s faced. Who had ever heard of dust pneumonia? But many people and animals actually suffered and died from this horrible condition.

It's also a message of hope in that we realize that humans have always faced challenges throughout history due to the changing environment and we have been successful, as a country, overcoming these events and occurring conditions.

This is also a story of women. And the friendships and love that women form even though the only thing they may have in common is that they are women. The characters and their relationships were very well developed and I came away continuing to think about these women and the joy they were still able to find in life regardless of their current circumstances.
5 stars for The Four Winds!

This was my first Kristin Hannah book. Of course, I knew of her work and had wanted to read one of her novels for a long time. NetGalley gave me an excuse by gifting me a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley (and to the publisher, too).

The Dust Bowl-era story was poignant, and for those who have studied history (or, perhaps, read Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath") will know many of the socio-economic truths that form the backdrop of the novel. It was a hard time. Life was unfair. Society was divided between those who had and those who had not, and there was suffering that was nearly unimaginable.

With memorable characters and unforgettable relationships, "The Four Winds" does a brilliant job evoking rage at the injustices in the U.S. The author adeptly drawls parallels between the Great Depression and the current chilling realities the pandemic has brought us: a collapsed economy, widespread poverty, food insecurity, and catastrophic fear of the future.

The book will stay with me for a long, long time. Thank you to the author for her moving story and transporting me back to the past for what turned out to be a hard look at our future.

This is a story about the indomitable nature of

This book was beautiful & heartbreaking- filled with moments of light that contrast the bleak, tragic time period. This book explores the concept of relational capital during stark poverty. The author’s voice is lovely, and brings this testimony to resilience to life in an incredible way. Highly recommend!

Wow. Kristin Hannah does it again.

The Four Winds is an emotional gut-punch, but I honestly think in this time when we think we are experiencing such hardship in our country, reading about a family trying to survive the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression at the same time puts things into some perspective. We meet Elsa, a young woman who seems to be broken by life and the neglect of those who should love her most: her family. As the story progresses, she learns what it means to love and be loved and what “family” truly means.

Of course we readers can connect with the young Elsa who escapes in her books. I think it’s fitting that one of her favorite books was Pride and Prejudice, for in many ways, this could be an American tale of Pride and Prejudice.

I couldn’t put this book down, and like I said, I think reading this during our pandemic has put some perspective on what suffering and struggling to survive really looks like.

I highly recommend reading this book, and I also highly suggest having tissues handy. This book will require an emotional investment as you come to love Elsa, Lorena, Ant, Tony, Rose, Jack and so many more. Kristin Hannah once again writes a piece of historical fiction that leaves its imprint on our hearts.

You can always, always count on Kristin Hannah for a story that will push her characters to the brink and give them the opportunity to surprise themselves—and you—with strength far beyond what they thought they were capable of. The Four Winds is just such a novel, full of grit in every sense of the word.

Hannah transports us to the Texas panhandle in the era of The Dust Bowl, when one unusually audacious night in the life of a young woman changes the trajectory of her life on the precipice of The Great Depression and the region's infamously deadly ecological disaster. Through years of hardship and draught, dust storms and illness, poverty and heartbreak, we're swept into a fierce tale of motherhood, family (by blood, by marriage, and by choice), commitment, and courage when all seems lost. This richly painted history, with meticulous research that wholly brings another time and place alive on the page, resonates in unsettling ways today: How do we treat those seeking refuge? What harsh judgments might we make about people we don't want to know? And at what cost are we willing to stand up for what's right? Kristin Hannah has done it again. A must for fans of historical and women's fiction.

If you can only read one book this year then you picked the right one! I just loved this book and recommend it to all ages. It's so true and historic , you will learn so much about how people fought to live and work the land years ago. Just to put food on the table! It is such a great book! I rate it a high five and can't wait until the book is published because I will buy my mom a copy to read, She is 84 and this type book is what she loves. I think she has read everyone of Kristin Hannah's books. She will absolutely be entranced with this story. Do yourself a huge favor and get yourself a copy. Then read the book twice to be sure and enjoy it. Thank you so much publisher and Net galley for letting me read it.

Propaganda Bombs Lying In Wait

Another larger than life, epic piece of historical fiction from Hannah where time and place are as significant as the characters themselves.

This one takes place in Dust Bowl territory during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The story starts in the Texas Panhandle and moves to the San Joaquin valley when estimated hundreds of thousands of migrants flooded into the valley, desperate for work, any work in order to feed their families and survive. Yes, it’s a tear-jerker.

Elsa Wolcott is twenty-five years old and of a wealthy and prominent Texas family. Sickly as a child, not considered attractive enough to marry well, Elsa escapes into books and dreams.
An encounter with a significantly younger son of Italian immigrants offers Elsa the family she has always dreamed of, one who loves and accepts her. However, when hard times fall upon Elsa and her farmer in-laws, it is her husband who proves to be a weak link. Elsa rises to her full power as the threat against her children mounts and she must flee their home along with her children in search of a better life or at least one where they can actually breathe (oh the irony).
When Elsa arrives in a new state with only a glimmer of hope, she learns an even greater lesson about exploitation and the cruelty of men. In spite of all she has to endure, Elsa manages to teach her children valuable lessons because lessons are the only abundant entity in their lives.
The story is imbued with a sense of incompleteness something I have not experienced with prior Hannah novels. Perhaps the franchise is under stricter time constraints? Perhaps the author thought the book was done? Perhaps the story was meant to serve an agenda aside from simple entertainment?
Also interesting as part of the storyline, is the seductive nature of Communism among disenfranchised workers. The promise of this particular siren’s song in this particular time in history as well as in our current time pits some of the hardest working citizens in our history alongside those who refuse to get off their butts and do anything more than hold out their hand with no differentiation between the groups. Coincidence? I don’t know? What I do know is that it was portrayed in overwhelming one-sidedness. Even the male protagonist, Jack, is written as a sexy, lovable rogue who wants nothing more than fair wages for workers while he seems to have no personal skin in the game he plays with their lives. Unfortunately, after putting Elsa and her children’s own lives at risk, he continues on with his mission. Somehow, all this is romanticized in the novel.
It made me curious as to Hannah’s political beliefs and in checking out her social media, it is not difficult to ascertain which way she leans. A recent photo of her alone in what appears to be her home office fully masked is a disturbing image of the virtue signaling so prevalent among today’s celebrities and influencers.
Still, it is undeniable that Hannah writes a damn good story. This one is no exception but reader beware of the propaganda bombs lying in wait.
BRB Rating: Read It.

"Love is what remains when everything else goes away". What an incredibly powerful novel. The plight of those effected by the Depression and the Dust Bowl is depicted in such a vivid and heartbreaking way.

This is the story of a woman who spent her childhood being told that she wasn't pretty enough or health enough to be loved. Just when she gets comfortable living the life of a farm wife and mother with her family, they are ravaged by the Dust Bowl. She needs to decide how to be brave and make the right decision for her family to keep them alive in the most desperate of times.

Not may books make me cry. This one did it. The trials Elsa is put through are devastating. This is a read that parallels our modern lives living through COVID. You don't realize how good we have it until you reflect on this bit of history.

Boy, Kristen Hannah really knows how to take us to a different world and completely engage our hearts along the way. This book is set in dust bowl Texas, then Great Depression California. The hardships that Elsa and her family endure are just unbelievable. A very educational, inspirational story. I’ve already ordered a hardback copy for my mom.

Elsa feels weak and unattractive; her parents tell her so. Destined for spinsterhood, she commits one rebellious act when she meets Tony, a handsome, younger man who finds her desirable. When her self-righteous parents discover she is pregnant, they drop her at Tony’s parents’ farm where she is accepted into the family. As years pass, she is loved and cherished, until Tony, unable to deal with the Depression and Texas dust storms, abandons them. She sets out with her children to California where they are treated as pariahs, along with the other migrants who have come from the four winds. She never abandons hope, symbolized by a lucky penny she carries. Kristin Hannah’s vivid descriptions of the elements they battle and the despicable living conditions of the camps are hard-going for the reader.at times. She offers, however, moments of light as we watch Elsa meet love again and finally find her voice.

This is a sad book. The main character is not appreciated by her family and rebels. She marries a man after an indiscretion on her birthday. She builds a life with her husbands family during the depression in Oklahoma. I have not finished it yet because it was so sad and I needed to read some happier lighter faster reads. It was a slow book for me. I am reading this on an e-reader and that might also be part of why I haven't finished it. Too many books too little time. It is easier to grab a hardcover or a paperback off the shelf for me. I will finish it because it is a good book.

Kristin Hannah's latest book, The Four Winds, follows the story of Elsa and her children Loreda and Ant. Having been abandoned by Elsa's husband, Elsa faces a bleak existence in Texas with her in-laws, attempting to save her family and their land from the dismal reality of life in the Dust Bowl. The time comes when Elsa must make a change if her family is to survive, so she follows the lead of countless others and heads for California for the possibility of an improved life.

I am sure that there is a great deal of historical accuracy in this book, as in Hannah's previous books. And while it is most definitely a story of resilience and determination in the face of adversity, it was difficult to read heart-rending event after event over the course of the majority book of this size without glimpses of a brighter future. Were I to pick this book up at a different time than what we're currently experiencing, I might have enjoyed it more, but in the current state of unrest in the nation, this was more of a bleak read than I was prepared for. If readers go into the book expecting that, they may enjoy it more than I did.

Thanks go to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Kirstin Hannah really is an incredible writer. You feel like you are in the story and her characters and settings are richly detailed. I was really enjoying this one when it suddenly took a sharp left. And by sharp left I mean romanticizing Communism. This started to read like state endorsed propaganda. Bad Capitalist. Good Communism. I was seriously rolling my eyes. Thankfully I know that Communism NEVER works no matter how much it is idealized. I enjoyed this book before it went in this direction. I'm thankful that I was educated in a time when the truth about Communism was taught and the countless millions who have lost their life under this ideology.

This is a story of Elsa and her family caught in the Great Depression and Dust Bowl years in the Texas panhandle. I was eager to read more and more of this book looking for the happy moments, but it was just so depressing, there weren’t many. I loved Elsa’s relationship with her in-laws, and how tough she was even though she didn’t see herself that way. I had a hard time, however, with the beginning of the book. Her relationship with her own parents and the way she ended up with her husband, I found really implausible and almost gave up. I’m glad I stuck with it, the book did get a little better, but I felt like the opening was just a rush job to get Elsa’s character set up in the situation for the rest of the book to take place. I felt the author manipulated the character a little clumsily at the beginning in order to make the rest of the book work. That opening and just how gloomy the rest of the book was made it difficult for me to fall in love with this book.

Hannah doesn't disappoint with her newest historical fiction set in the Texas dust bowl. A family struggling to survive through unimaginable hard times. As they set out in a journey to better their lives, but only to be treated as outcasts. This epic was hard to put down. I highly recommend it to all readers of Hannah and fans of historical fiction.

The Four Winds is the story of Elsa Martinelli and her family. Elsa’s in laws immigrated from Italy to Texas to farm the land and live the American dream. Rejected by her biological family, Elsa finds comfort in the arms of a younger man, becomes pregnant, and marries him, moving to his family’s farm. It is the Great Depression, and they are living in the dust bowl. It has not rained in years, it is boiling hot, and most families are leaving for the hopes and dreams they have of a better life on the west coast.

After Elsa’s son nearly dies from dust pneumonia, she finally decides to head to California with her two children. Although the grass is greener there, their lives do not seem to be any better than their farm in Texas. They must live in squalor, pick cotton for a living, and take government handouts to survive. The lure of communism is ever present.

Ms. Hannah does a remarkable job of placing the reader in the time and place. It is easy to empathize with the characters, who struggle with important decisions and do what they believe is right. The writing is exquisite and realistic. At no point did I find the story overly predictable; however, I did speed read sections that were repetitive or lengthy. If the story is appealing to you, and you are a fan of Kristin Hannah, I recommend picking up this book!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and Kristin Hannah for an advance reader copy.

4.2. This book is very well done but extremely heartbreaking and tragic. I really liked Ms, Hannah's The Nightingale, but found The Great Alone lacking. This is in the middle. A little hard to get engaged in the very beginning but got better as it went on, likely due to the subject matter and extreme difficulties the characters faced from a sad upbringing for Elsa (from a wealthy town family) the main character, and the perils she, her husband and his family and their children faced in the Great Depression from the drought and destructive dust storms and elements encompassing the Texas Panhandle, going from a good life to poverty and starvation, to the trip out west to Califirnia to find steady work where they were exposed to more poverty, loss and additionally discrimination as 'migrants.'. With all of the dire consequences and fierce struggles to survive with which the characters had no control, the novel shows how compassion, fierce determination, resilience, and love can triumph. There are similarities to The Grapes of Wrath in the story being told, and Kristin Hannah does as good of a job as she can. This is not a novel for the faint hearted as it is difficult to digest, yet it is a realistic historical fiction of what transpired during the Depression for many families from all over the country. Good writing, research, and excellent character development. Highly recommend. I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review

I haven't read many books about the dust bowl (I hated The Grapes or Wrath) and was a little worried about this topic. Kristin Hannah brought made this hard topic so tangible and relatable telling it from Elsa's point of view. The book begins with Elsa's history. She leaves a unloving family for loving and loyal in laws although her husband is a dreamer. Her children are her greatest loves. She leaves Texas in hopes of finding a better life in California after the dust bowl threatens to kill them all. Little did they know so many others flocked to California for the same reason. The Californian's thought they were trash - similarly to the Mexican migrant workers that had been run out before this. It was striking to read how these poor people treated like trash. Hannah's descriptions brought so much empathy to the situation. It was wonderful watching Elsa grow from a "sickly" young woman the warrior she could be. This book reminds me of American Dirt in that both are stories of mothers who will do what it takes to help her children survive in horrible circumstances. I highly recommend this novel. Kristin Hannah does not disappoint.

The best book I’ve read in a long time. I fell in love with each of the characters, and Kristin Hannah’s writing transported me to this time period. I couldn’t put it down, but was sad when it ended.