The Four Winds
Kristin Hannah
St Martin’s Press
Due to release: February 9, 2021

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read this free ebook for my honest review.

Synopsis: Texas after the Great Depression when Americans were down as never before, out of money, out of hope and out of work a horrific drought strikes the Great Plains. A young woman, Elsa Wolcott Martinelli comes of age. Living on a farm during this great drought she is faced with a recurring decision of giving up the farm life and moving elsewhere to save her marriage and family.

My thoughts: Throughout the novel I kept thinking this sounds just like the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck written back in 1939. Here with Hannah’s novel we get the female perspective of what it was like to leave a land and people she loves and to journey to an unknown territory for the health and future of her children..

This was a gripping story that didn’t have the typical lull in the middle where a reader likes to skim through several pages/chapters to get to the meat of the story.

I loved the author’s reference to literary works such as The Illustrated Fanny Hill, the book that brought Elsa into her own sexuality and The Lady of Shallot when her parents locked her up for venturing toward her coming of age.

The imagery was very realistic as she described the cattle that died from the dust and wind storms when they were cut open there was no meat only dust. The children had to wear gas masks and when they didn’t Ant gets dust pneumonia, something I never even knew existed.

The idiom’s the author introduced were hilarious and I love learning usage of such figurative language from bygone ages such as bumping gums when someone is talking too much.

My biggest angst of the novel is the leaning towards communism is a good thing. The book turned completely political as Elsa’s daughter Lorena, when speaking with the librarian, says, “If there was only one class and everyone worked for the good of all, it would be a better world.” Loreda gets rescued by the communist organization after she ran away from home and she comes to understand the good the communist do and says of the communist organization, “Helping people [cotton workers] gets their attention.”

This is a heart-wrenching story of love and survival and family taking place during the Dust Bowl of the 1930's. So much of the story is heartbreaking, but it's also about triumphing over our trials and fighting unfairness. The characters in the book are well-developed and often drive the story more than the plot. This book is definitely reminiscent of The Great Alone to me in terms of the themes. It's a good read!

My gosh I loved this book. Thank you so much to the publishers for an early galley to read. Set in the early 1900s, our main character Elsa has been told since she was a child that she is ugly and infirm. When she gets pregnant out of wedlock, her family disowns her and she moves in with the father of her baby and his parents. They marry and set out to be farmers in Texas. Many trials and tribulations come Elsa's way as a farmer, mother, and wife.

I'm sad this book ended.

Just finished Kristin Hannah’s newest. Not sure where to start... this book will inspire everyone. It’s the story of a family caught in troubled times. The Great Depression has taken everything from the Martinellis. But it cannot take their courage and their love of each other. Elsa Lives her life believing she is not very worthwhile, but boy is she wrong. As usual Kristin Hannah proves how she can spin a story and give you “all the feels”. Don’t miss this one..preorder it now. And remember to read the authors note at the end of the book.

An incredible historical tale, depicting the story of the American people through the years of the Great Depression and its aftermath. Highly recommended!

A delicate, heartfelt and moving story. Kristen Hanna did it again, with a well written novel that makes you feel what the characters are feeling. So lively, so vivid, so real! I couldn’t stop reading this book, each page I read made me feel the most saddest, angriest and happiest feelings I could have experienced while reading this book. Highly recommend!!

Fans of Kristin Hannah will not be disappointed. She’s written a very well told story about the trials and terrible situations during the Great Depression. The story centers around Elsa and her children and begins in Texas and goes to California. The dust bowl, hunger, poverty and greedy landowners.
I’m so glad I’ve read this.

This book takes place in a time period that I know little about and honestly had very little interest in! But, I’m an avid reader of Kristin Hannah, so I was excited to read it! Within minutes I was hooked. Read it in one afternoon. Such a well crafted story about an environmental disaster, economic collapse, and politics in the 1930s.

What a fantastic book. If you loved The Nightengale, you will absolutely love this book. I feel like the market is saturated with WW2 historical fiction, but this book chronicles the devastating journey that a family makes to California during the Great Depression. The character development is so beautiful, and you will ugly cry at the end. This will easily make my top 3 books of 2020.

I loved this book! Kristin Hannah is quickly becoming a favorite of mine, and her writing is proof that she is well-versed in what makes up the human condition.

Elsa Martinelli was a fantastic heroine! Her strength and perseverance during a time when many were giving up hope was inspiring. She begrudgingly left the land she had come to love in order to make a better life for her children, but the journey west came with its own trials and tribulations. The “land of milk and honey” was not all it was cracked up to be, and life in California brought a whole new slew of struggles. But Elsa fought and sacrificed to provide for her family, and I truly admired her for never giving up hope.

Overall, I thought this was a wonderful and often times heart-wrenching story, but I couldn’t give it any less than five stars. Highly recommend!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3538622742

The sweeping tale explores the history of the Great Depression in the dust bowl and also the exploitation of migrant workers. With beautifully written characters and a compelling story this book was a real page turner.

Would it really be a Kristin Hannah book if the end doesn't leave you ugly sobbing? You'd have to ask someone else, because once again, Kristin Hannah's newest book, The Four Winds, knocked it out of the park!

Many thanks to netgalley and the publisher, who gave me this free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Two of my favorite Kristin Hannah books are The Nightingale and The Great Alone. They were about strong women who made difficult choices and many sacrifices. This story was also about a strong woman who never thought of herself as brave, but in the eyes of others, she was a true warrior.

As a young child, Elsa was stricken with rheumatic fever. After she recovered, her parents constantly made it known that she was not only unattractive but now also weak, and she would never be able to have that happy loving life that her beautiful sisters had with their husbands. Elsa felt this rejection by her family for over 25 years. She was lonely and alone. But she remembered the words of her grandfather, the only family member that ever loved her. He often told her to be brave. When she took this advice to heart, she snuck away for a night of adventure. She found this adventure in the form of an young Italian five years her junior. A few months later she was thrown out of her parents’ house and handed over to the Martinelli household with only her suitcase and life growing within her. This was the start of Elsa’s journey from a life unloved to truly knowing what it meant to be loved and give love under the most dire circumstances.

As per usual with a Kristin Hannah story, it was very engaging and extremely emotional. Tissues need to be close by because the characters experienced so much hardship during this time. It was the Great Depression. They lived in the Texan panhandle where Dust Bowls and endless days of droughts devastated their land and livelihood. Elsa and her children needed to travel west to California to protect her son’s lungs after he got sick. She was afraid, but once again she heard her grandfather’s words to be brave. When she reached California, life was not better. The farm owners took every advantage possible of these migrant workers. Elsa was beside herself with fear and worry. She struggled to keep her children safe and fed.But she heard her grandfather’s words once again to be brave.

I loved all these characters and they were so realistically written. They reminded me of those very real people captured so beautifully and hauntingly by famed photographer Dorothea Lange. But the one person who stood out, much like her famous photo of “Migrant Mother” was Elsa. I loved how Elsa developed into a strong empowering woman. With the guiding and loving ways of her in-laws, Elsa learned how to make what was needed to survive with what little was available. She was an example to her children of what it meant to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds and how love was the ultimate sustenance that kept them strong when most needed.

This was a very well written story, extremely captivating, and at times, heartbreakingly sad. This time period is always difficult to read, but sometimes those difficult reads are some of the best books around.

An ARC was given for an honest review.

Thank you for an advanced copy of The Four Winds! I LOVED THIS BOOK! Kristin Hannah really delivered, as always. This is a story about a family struggling to survive in the Dust Bowl and a mother who does everything for her family's survival. I loved the strong female characters, the historical fiction aspect of it, and the tiniest bit of romance sprinkled throughout. The themes are extremely relevant even today in the tumultuous times we are living.

If you are a fan of historical fiction, this book is right up your alley. Kristin Hannah's The Four Winds is the story of a much under-represented time in American history- The Dust Bowl. There isn't a lot of fiction out there about this time period and this place because who wants to read about people surviving in dust storms and not having food? You should want to read this! This is a very humanizing story about hard times, the will to survive, and doing what you need to do for your family. I love how Hannah explores the relationships in this book, particularly the ones between women. This book also seems very relevant today because the question is often asked about how people could let their fellow Americans suffer. We forget how the dust bowl migrants were treated when they left to look for jobs elsewhere. I highly recommend this book to my fellow historical fiction aficionados. Kristin Hannah does not let us down with her outstanding research and interesting characters.

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and Book Club Girls. I love Kristin Hannah books and this one did not disappoint. I felt like I was living along with the characters because of the wonderful descriptions throughout the book. I found the story interesting but by the end I was worn out due to the terribly difficult life the characters led. Although depressing, the book made me sit back and be thankful we live in present times, even with a pandemic, and not back in the 30’s. I would recommend this book.

Thank you St. Martin’s and NetGalley for ARC. Something for readers to look forward to in 2021 and sure to be a best seller. While this one didn’t quite measure up for me to The Great Alone, it was another outstanding piece of historical fiction. A little slow for me in the first half but an excellent second half and I’d love a sequel that follows Loreda into adult hood.

Kristin Hannah’s books are just amazing to me. She always makes the state, area and/or weather feel like a character in the book. This story was around the farm lands in Texas, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and the plight to California. Elsa is the main character throughout it all. She loves the land in Texas but she isn’t sure her or the ones she loves can survive. The trials and the journey both via land and emotionally are heartbreaking and amazing. This is a book that will sit with me for a long long time.

This book does not come out until February. However. Thanks to #netgalley I was able to get an #advancedreaderscopy y’all. Can we all agree that #kristinhannah KNOWS how to tug on our heart strings. Everything she writes is a masterpiece. While the names and stories are fictional there’s some truth there. She tells a tale of the Great Depression. Of the dust storms Texans suffered. A tale of love, loss, poverty, strength, suffering, and bravery. The tale she weaves for us is so realistic that I wasn’t able to stop or put the book down until I had finished. Truth be told. I didn’t want the book to end. I felt for these characters. I wanted more from them and their story. Where did they go? What happened? Yes. The ending was perfect for a book such as this. But. It is one of those pieces that stick with you. These are characters and people you won’t soon forget. Some authors we tire of. Their writing seems rushed. The ending slapped together. Kristin keeps her stores neatly woven. #netgalleyreviewer #netgalleybooks #bookstagram #booklover #booknerd #booknerdlife #bookrecommendations

This book is so sad and so depressing. Grim would be a great word to describe it. I loved Elsa so much but how much suffering can one person take? From her biological family to her deadbeat husband her life is one big pit of sadness.

To balance the constant sadness there is some happiness in the book too. Her relationship with her in-laws made me smile. Tony and Rosa were my favourites (besides Elsa). This book shows us the resilience and grit that would have been necessary to get through the hardships.

But back to the sadness and gloom. This book is full of it. The Great Depression and the dust storms were terrible to read about. Sadly things did not get better for her when she got to California. She did make some friends along the way (including a special friend) but overall this book felt heavy to me.

In classic Kristin Hannah style this book is well written and well researched. Also in classic Kristin Hannah style I needed some Kleenex to get through it.