One of the saddest stories I've ever read, The Four Winds is an epic masterpiece that only a writer like Kristin Hannah could manage. Elsa is born tragically unpretty and unloved, so when Rafe Martinelli shows her some attention it's no real surprise to anyone but her parents that she ends up pregnant. Her daughter, Loreda, joins in the world's scorn of her mother and only loves her dad. This is a major problem once Rafe Martinelli runs away from life and his family.

This story tells the tragedies of those who had to migrate because of the Dust Bowl in a poignant and heart-wrenching way. Elsa, as an unloved single parent, has to find a way to reach her daughter while keeping both of her children safe and fighting for the rights of the migrant workers. I definitely learned more about the living conditions of those displaced, American Refugees. A must read!

This wasn’t my favorite title by Kristin Hannah. It grabbed my attention at the beginning and I had high hopes. About halfway through it lost my attention. A decent read, but have read better by this author.

The story opens in 1921 in Dahlhart, Texas, on the eve of Elsa Woolcott's twenty-fifth birthday. She has spent "years in enforced solitude, reading fictional adventures and imagining other lives." She knows she has "always been an outsider in her own family," even though they blame her circumstances on the childhood illness she survived. She also knows -- and they have reinforced -- that she is not pretty. She is tall, pale, thin, and lacking self-confidence, but determined to have a meaningful life, rather than merely exist. And she naively believes she might be able to fulfill that dream when she meets Rafe Martinelli, a young man from a proud Italian family who is bound for college and engaged to another young woman. Elsa believes she has found love, but soon discovers how little she knows about life and the world. When her relationship with Rafe can no longer remain hidden, she is disowned and abandoned by her own family, and Rafe's college plans are scuttled. But before they marry, Elsa asks if Rafe's parents, Rose and Tony, will love her child. When Rose declares, "The baby, I will love. My first grandchild," Elsa knows that for the sake of her child, she will become part of a disappointed family that doesn't want her.

Rose and Tony gradually take Elsa, along with her daughter, Loreda, and son, Anthony ("Ant"), into their hearts. Rose teaches Elsa how to cook and tend to a home, and Elsa tries to hold her marriage together as her love for her in-laws, the land, and the true home she has come to know, grows.

But by 1934, the family has endured four years of drought. Coupled with the stock market crash in 1929 and ensuing Depression, they are barely surviving. Their wheat crops have failed, the well is drying up, and Rafe is increasingly miserable . . . and drinking. The dust storms begin, obliterating everything in their path, including the vegetables they have managed to grow in their garden. They console themselves with the belief that so long as cows and chickens thrive, they can get by selling milk and eggs.

Hannah compellingly and unsparingly relates the family's increasingly dire circumstances. Her descriptions of the brutal dust storms are realistic and terrifying. She convincingly depicts teen Loreda's growing anger and resentfulness, as well as the desperation that inevitably overtakes Elsa, Tony, and Rose. They watch as their neighbors begin losing their land via foreclosure or selling it off for any price, along with their possessions, and leaving their Texas homes in search of better living conditions. Many head to California, some to Oregon.

But the Martinellis remain convinced that they can, quite literally, weather the storms and rain will come, bringing solutions to their problems. It doesn't. Things continually get worse until there is no choice to be made. Silicosis -- dust pneumonia -- threatens Ant's life. The doctor explains, "Prairie dust is full of silica. It builds up in the lungs and tears away the air sacs. He's breathing in dirt and swallowing it. Filling up with it." The boy literally cannot breathe. "Dust pneumonia. That was what they called it, but it was really loss and poverty and man's mistakes," Hannah writes.

Hannah's portrayal of Elsa's dangerous journey west to California, where she believes she will be able to make a decent home for herself and her children, is gut-wrenching, suspenseful, and heartbreaking. Elsa's grit and focus compel her as she navigates the dangerous route with her children in tow. The harrowingly disappointing realities she confronts when they arrive in the Golden State are even more devastating. It is far from the "land of milk and honey" promised in the flyer a neighbor pressed into Rafe's hand, declaring, "Jobs for everyone! Land of opportunity! Go West to California!" Californians do not welcome those migrating from the Dust Bowl, instead taking full advantage of them and forcing them to barely eke out an existence in deplorable and inhuman living conditions. Elsa soon realizes that she has brought her children to an environment even worse than the one they escaped in Texas. But in the migrant camp where they take up residence, she does find a friend upon whom she can rely, and the way the women help and support each other is one of the most beautiful and tragic aspects of the story. That friendship profoundly impacts Elsa and the choices she ultimately makes.

The Four Winds is an engrossing work of historical fiction at the center of which is the memorable and inspiring Elsa, a woman who finds strength she never knew she possessed and summons it in order to protect the two things in the world that matter most: her children. Made to believe that she was unworthy of love by her own family, Elsa learned as a child to be invisible in her own home. And as she enters into marriage with Rafe, she does so intending to remain invisible. But she is transformed once she becomes a mother and as merely staying alive becomes more challenging with each new day. As is her daughter, who finds her own strength as she gradually stops blaming Elsa for every horrible thing she has experienced and observes the lengths to which her mother will go in order to protect her and her brother.

Hannah does not shy away from exploring, through her characters' experiences, how America created and responded to the Great Depression. She depicts the struggles between classes, especially once Elsa and her children arrive in California. Migrants are denied medical care and education. Elsa and other workers are taken advantage of by wealthy landowners who hire laborers to pick cotton under terms that ensure they will never be independent. In order to secure a place to live and be able to feed her children, Elsa is forced to accept credit, but it creates a cycle from which she cannot escape. She must rely on more credit during the winter months when there are no crops to pick in order to pay off the prior year's balance, unable to ever escape the cycle. Union organizers bring hope for better working and living conditions, along with danger to the camps. Elsa finds herself in the midst of the controversy and realizes that her grandfather was right when he told her so many years earlier that it isn't fear that matters in life. It's the choices you make when you are afraid. Elsa's journey and experiences lead her to conclude that she has to be a warrior for her children because that's what motherhood requires. And she has to tangibly model for them the lesson her grandfather taught her. It's a life-changing decision.

The Four Winds is an epic tale of power, strength, survival, and how far love can and will carry a determined woman who envisions a meaningful life for herself and her children. In Hannah's capable telling of Elsa's story, love carries her through and out of unimaginable despair and hopelessness, and permits her to leave her children an enduring legacy devotion and resilience.

Hannah says that she began writing historical fiction out of a "desire to return women to their lost stories in history, put them at the center of the action, and make them the heroes." Elsa is Hannah's favorite character to date because she transforms from an insecure woman who, at the outset, doesn't believe she is worthy of love or has a vibrant future, progressing primarily as a result of becoming a mother into "a warrior woman who is able to fight not only for herself and her children, but finally finds a voice strong enough to speak for people who are too afraid to speak for themselves." Hannah describes fictional Elsa as "representative of thousands of brave women who went west in search of a better life." Elsa is indeed a heroic character that readers will embrace and remember fondly long after they finish reading The Four Winds.

Kristin Hannah has provided a moving novel of female empowerment set against the backdrop of the Depression and dust storms in the midwest. Despite being faced time and time again with occurrences that would keep anyone down, Elsa triumph and becomes a strong independent woman. Her sense of family and loyalty is to be admired and proves the definition of real strength. High schoolers would enjoy learning about this time in history using realistic characters and a storyline that pulls you in from the first chapter.

Kristin Hannah NEVER disappoints! This was a perfect summer read... it only took me two days to read it!

Given what’s happening in the world today this story really stuck a nerve with me. I could really feel for the people struggling because of the drought. These days do many people are struggling to survive because Covid closed the world down. This made me really invested in the story so much more than I think if I hadn’t experienced it.
Although the story was enjoyable and really made you feel your emotions the very long descriptions really made the story drag for me. I did feel the book ended really well

This was the emotional roller coaster I was expecting. I didn't love this one nearly as much as her past books. Parts were slow and I wasn't rooting for any characters. This definitely won't stop me from picking up her future books and recommending her to everyone!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title.

Due to a family illness, and unexpected events, I am very far behind in writing my reviews.I found my self reading one book after another without writing the review -- that was a big mistake. I did enjoy this book very much,. I happily give it 4 stars.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is an absolute masterpiece. I'm not going to sugar coat it, my heart ached and ached hard for this one. Kristin Hannah brought forward the heartbreaking story of The Great Depression through the eyes of Elsa Martinelli and her family. I held back tears on several occasions in between strong feelings of anger, sadness, joy, and hope. I kept wondering how it was that I just met these characters through the simple words on a paper because I honestly felt as if I knew them my whole life. And then Kristin Hannah brings about Jack Valen and my heart burst. His genuine love for Elsa radiated off the pages and oozed all over. While the ending was anything but what I expected (and trust me, I wish it turned out differently), I still loved every word. I only hope that one day I can meet a warrior like Elsa and that just maybe my daughter will be as fierce as Loreda. Highly, highly recommend.

Another wonderful book by Kristin Hannah, I really enjoyed this one! Must read if you liked her previous books.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, originally a complimentary ARC courtesy of NetGalley, has been out for a while but I just got to it. It is one of Hannah’s best, in my opinion being both captivating and heartbreaking. I couldn't put it down- it was a moving glimpse into the survivors from the Dust Bowl and Great Depression told from a woman's point of view, highlighting the plight of the migrant worker, the fight for fair wages and better working conditions, and the strength of a mother's love.

It's 1934 in Texas and drought has devastated farmers and their families. Elsa Martinelli has to decide to stay and fight or take her children west for the possibility of a better life.

The Dust Bowl is admittedly not something I know much about but while reading this book I kept thinking about how much has changed in our country since then but also how much hasn't. My heart constantly broke for this family and everything that is happening that is out of their control.

This may not be a fast-paced book but at no point will you want to put it down. It's a beautiful story of strength, resilience, and the lengths we go to protect our family. You'll go through a whole slew of emotions from beginning to end. Anger for how they were treated, happiness to see the friendships formed, and hope for their future. It's not an easy read but fans of Kristin Hannah probably knew to expect that.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for my eARC of this book.

By my count, exactly 5 happy or uplifting things happen in this book, so at 464 pages, it's a very depressing read. Interesting history told with strong emotion, as can be expected from Kristin Hannah's books, though. More political than the average Hannah tale.

*soft spoiler(s)*

This is a book that I literally couldn’t stop hearing about – it seemed like every time I opened an email in early 2021, it was touting this book. (For the stat nerds, see short list below.) Maybe it was a case of too much hype, but it just, sadly, really didn’t do it for me.

The characters had good depth and the scenes throughout the novel were well written, but the tale didn’t overpower me with emotion, which I would have expected for a story smack dab in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930’s depression and intra-country migration.

There was a ton of backstory to read through before Elsa’s story really got going (her teen years, early married life, quite a bit of time in Texas before moving to California). While I love good backstory, as it provides character motivation, in The Four Winds it merely seemed to bog down the narrative, and underscored the novel with a rambling train of thought.

I also felt let down that Elsa didn’t get any resolution with her runaway husband, which I was eagerly awaiting, but it never came.

The good news, however, is that Elsa, through her ordeal(s), finds her self-worth, beauty, and voice.

Recommended for those who love historical fiction and who are eager to know about this period of American history.

Of note, too, is that handy book club kit from St. Martin’s Press is available at https://kristinhannah.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/FourWinds_BookClubKit.pdf for our book club lovers out there (you know who you are – ha ha). You may also read an excerpt of the novel at https://kristinhannah.com/books/the-four-winds/the-four-winds-excerpt/.

A big thank you to Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for providing an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for this honest review.

The Four Winds brought in a boat-load of accolades, from such sources as:
• Barnes and Noble Book Club Selections
• Book Club Chat Best Book Club Pick for February 2021
• Book Clubbish New Releases for February
• Book of the Month Club February 2021 selection
• Jenna Bush Hager Book Club list from the Today Show February 2021 selection

A big thank you to Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for providing an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for this honest review.

If you’re looking to buy a copy of The Four Winds, please consider purchasing from https://bookshop.org/lists/bloggers-to-watch-with-a-book-in-our-hands - the online bookstore that gives 75% of the book’s profits to your local, indie bookshops.

#TheFourWinds
#KristinHannah
#StMartinsPress
#NetGalley
#GeneralFiction
#LiteraryFiction
#HistoricalFiction
#WomensFiction
#BookClubs

Why is this not a time period that we see very often in the publishing world? It is such a devastating and heartbreaking period of history that is rife with stories of families being torn apart. What made the journey in the Four Winds so devastating was that you can see these kinds of things happening in modern society as a result of the recession and the pandemic. One moment everything is going well and then, of no fault of your own, you are plunged into deep and bone-chilling poverty. No amount of planning and scrimping could have saved the Martinelli family from the false hope, discrimination and circumstances into which they fell. Humanity is once again reflected in Kristin Hannah's writing.

I was given access to a free copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Elsa is a 25 yr old “ugly duckling” living in the Texas panhandle - she meets Rafe who gives her hope of a different life. Fast forward, she and Rafe have two kids living on his family’s farm. Enter: the Great Depression. Rafe leaves his family behind for the west, and after months of sticking it out amongst wind storms and slim pickings, Elsa decided that’s what she and her two kids needs to do too. What follows is a journey from Texas to California, and what awaits them when they arrive.

I know this book was highly anticipated for 2021 given Hannah’s smashing success w The Nightengale & The Great Alone. I really like how Hannah is able to adapt her storytelling to various parts of history — contemporary Alaska & WWII France felt so different from this 1930s Depression-era dust bowl time period. One of my biggest critiques of the Nightengale was historical accuracy & this bothered me less in this book (but maybe it’s because I know less about this period). She repeats herself fairly often (re: Elsa not thinking she’s brave or pretty, Lorena thinking Elsa is annoying), but honestly in true KH fashion, this was a page turner. I love her ability to do that - her books are so easy to read and they suck you in. I was rooting for this down-and-our family for all 500+ pages…and even though the ending was DRAMA (of course for KH), I really enjoyed reading it.

Yet, there was very little joy in this book — a lot of hardship and sadness. I kept waiting for a win.. but then the book kept getting fewer and fewer pages 🥺 I loved the ending, especially after Lorena’s stunt at the general store and using being a woman to her advantage (for once).

Overall, what I generally expected but a bit drearier - still couldn’t put it down though. Thank you Kristen Hannah for re-kickstarting my 2021 reading w this one!

I had to take a break from this one roughly half way through. It is SO WELL written that I found myself worrying about the characters like they were members of my family. I'm glad I picked it back up and finished it, but some of the scenes feel so bleak that it was overwhelming for my anxious self.

ARC from the publisher via NetGalley, but the opinions are my own.

This is a hard hitting historical fiction book. This is the third Kristin Hannah book I have read, and this is was not my favorite one. I really enjoyed this book a lot, and it was very well written like all the other Kristin Hannah books. Kristin Hannah books are not for the light hearted because they are hard hitting and goes into the dark parts of the subject the book is covering. This one takes place during the great depression it starts in Texas. I have to say the characters are well developed, but they are strong hearted women that does not takes crap. I loved the characters. This book made me call my Grandmother who is the strongest women I know, and she was born in 1935. I loved books that makes me really think, and I also love when they show us how much the world as changed. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (St. Martin's Press) or author (Kristin Hannah) via NetGalley, so I can give honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

As if the Great Depression of the 1930s wasn't bad enough, America's farmers had the additional indignity of dirt flung in their eyes by way of the Dust Bowl. It was a time of little ... little prosperity, little sustenance, little hope. Author Kristin Hannah puts pen to page to recreate this unforgettable period of time in her new novel The Four Winds, a story about a formidable, resilient woman who fights against all odds to keep her family alive during one of the darkest periods in American history.

Elsa Walcott was born into a life of privilege on the Texas Plains, but has always been treated as the black sheep of her family due to the fact that she is just not beautiful. At the age of 25, she is considered to be a spinster by the day's standards, with little hope of ever marrying and having a family of her own. Nor will her parents entertain her dreams of going to college and having a career. So Elsa decides to rebel, and heads out one night to paint the town red in a scarlet dress to match.

Little does she know that the course of her life is set to change that night in ways she could never imagine. For it is then that she meets the handsome Rafe Martinelli - a local farmboy with big dreams. She marries Rafe and the two start a family, living on his parents' farm and working the land. Life on the farm is prosperous at first, but when hard times hit, everything that Elsa counted on in her life changes. With things growing more dire in Texas by the day, Elsa has to make a life-altering decision. Should she keep her family in Texas amid the wildly volatile and unpredictable dust storms, with no food on the table and little chance of hope, or should she head out to the "land of milk and honey" - California - and the promise of the American Dream?

Admittedly, I did not expect to love The Four Winds as much as I did. Hannah has managed to take dark and depressing subject matter and fill it with heart and hope. To me, the hallmark of a memorable historical fiction novel is one that inspires me to dig into the actual events behind a story - to peruse the history and study photos of the times, learning as much about the time period as I can. Such was the case with The Four Winds - I pulled up pictures of the horrific dust storms that loomed over the Great Plains, I examined images of the squatters' camps in California, and I learned about the blatant, biased discrimination brought upon Americans by Americans during the migrations to California. I was able to draw parallels between now and a time nearly 100 years ago, pondering the ways our country has changed and stayed the same. The Four Winds was as much an educational journey for me as it was a way to enjoyably pass the time. Thus, I can say with confidence that Hannah has done a stellar job in both entertaining and inspiring her readers.

As for The Four Winds' writing, storyline, and characters, none are to leave me anytime soon. This novel is bleak and gritty, yet at the same time full of perseverance and hope. Be prepared to root for the Martinelli family and see them through to the end of this heartwrenching novel. Hannah's descriptions of life on the Plains and in the camps of California are so evocative and imagined, you will feel like you are seeing it all through your own eyes; that you are on this journey right alongside the Martinelli family. By the time you are finished with this novel, you will be frustrated and in tears for what Elsa and her family went through, and for what all of the brave American men, women, and children faced and fought during the time of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Hats off to Kristin Hannah for vividly bringing to life the people and places of this somber time in American history.

Devastating to read but so well-written. It's a story about the tragic period of time during the dust bowl and Depression in the southern plain states. You will love her characters and weep with them and for them.