Tag line: There were times when the words of this story were as beautiful as the land was brutal.

My full review will be going live on FreshFiction.com, and I will be sure to add the link when it does.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is a very highly recommended historical fiction epic set during the Great Depression.

It is 1921 and Elsa Wolcott lives in the Texas Panhandle. She never felt love from her family and longed for something more, certainly love, but also acceptance and a place to belong. At the age of 25, she decides to take a chance, leaving her home one night looking for... something, she meets Rafe Martinelli, a young 18 year-old man who is also restless and the two make a connection with each other. After a few late night clandestine meetings, Elsa is pregnant, her parents throw her out, and she and Rafe are married. She lives on the Martinelli homestead, learns to cook, clean and farm, and to love her new in-laws, Tony and Rosa.

Then the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression hit the Great Plains. It is 1934. Foreclosures are rampant, crops are nonexistent, people are starving, livestock is dying, and the land is blowing away without rain. Elsa and Rafe have two surviving children, Loreda, 12, and Anthony (Ant), 7. Rafe, who has becoming increasingly distant and a hard drinker, leaves one night for California, abandoning his family. The Martinelli's struggle on until a decision must be made. Elsa takes Loreda and Ant, with Tony and Rosa's support, and they head to California to look for steady work and a better life. But California is not the land of milk and honey and the dream is a nightmare. The immigrants, or Okies, are discriminated against and taken advantage of, making their lives even more precarious.

Following in the tradition of Steinbeck's classic, The Grapes of Wrath, the historical time and setting in The Four Winds has been thoroughly researched and masterfully presented. Hannah does an excellent job setting her novel in the time period and describing the hardships they endured. The plot is well paced, covering the hardships in Texas and California and the narrative is compelling. I was engrossed in the story, both in Texas and California. There was no good choice during these desperate times and the whole gritty reality is clearly presented in totality as we follow one woman and her children. The backbreaking work for very low pay as migrant workers in California was heartbreaking and the treatment of these Americans who were just trying to take care of their families was despicable.

Elsa is, ultimately, a strong woman, but she has so much self-doubt and self-loathing that she has to overcome a lifetime of self-debasement in order to become the strong woman she is in the end. Loreda is a horrid teen, but also changes, becoming a mature, confident young woman after she experiences and takes note of the disparity of the treatment of people. When she is told, "They call you names because they don't want to think of you as like them" it was a truth that holds on today when people from the Great Plains are still called disparaging names and put down by people from California, as well as the east coast, with no acknowledgment that we are all Americans and, in light of the pandemic, we all need jobs.

Many of us who had ancestors live through this time period have heard the stories of hardship and sacrifice they endured living through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Some basic things they did during this time as a matter of course have survived right up through my generation. (Washing and reusing all plastic containers, foil, saving anything that might be useful for something.) But we were also taught to work hard without complaint and to put family first. It is a pleasure to read such a well-written novel that shows the self-sacrifice and determination of those who survived the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, in spite of the forces against them.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of St. Martin's Publishing Group via Netgalley
After publication the review will be posted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

I was deeply entrenched in the description about the Dust Bowl life and migration to Californian. As usual Kristin Hannah delivers a story with the most beautiful descriptions. From the details of the Dust Bowl life to traveling across the county to be faced with discrimination; Kristin Hannah delivers an epic story of family survival and love.  Elsa’s story is one of sheer courage and  perseverance even when everything in her family’s life is crumbling. This women is the type of women who I want in my life. One that will stop at nothing to protect her family even if that means she is the cost. 

If you are a fan of Kristin Hannah this book this not disappoint.

This is my first book by Kristin Hannah. At first, I was not sure if this book was for me. There is so much detail and I couldn't see where it was going. I had the idea it was a romance book. That was my mistake. Once I was in line with the writing I fell in love. In love with the charters, the author and story line. 

Elsa has seen her fair share of hardships. The worst of all being her parents not loving her, telling her she was sickly and not pretty. That she would have only the life she had with them. Alone in every sense of the word. She snuck out one night and ran into a man. A man who made her feel the opposite of what her parents did. She ended up getting pregnant and her parents tossed her out. At first Elsa thought this was the worst thing that could have happened. However, she learned it was the best!

Elsa moved in with Rafe's parents and got married. She had two kids with him. When times go rough Rafe left them. Left them all including his parents and children. Due to her son's illness Elsa was forced to take her children away and move to California. This was where I began to see where this story line was going.

This story is about a mother's love and her daughters strong willed personality. It's all the sacrifices a mother will make for her children. And in the end what she will do for herself as well.

A captivating story that will pull at your heartstrings from the beginning. From the dust storms in Texas to the treatment of migrants in California, this covers a lot of ground. Well written and well researched with memorable characters. Hannah is strong writer.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

Kristin Hannah has done it again. In the vein of "The Nightingale", "The Four Winds" is an immersive historical fiction story that is alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming. The Dust Bowl setting and era was truly unlike anything I have ever read about - such a fresh of breath air compared to many historical fiction novels currently on the market. I absolutely loved "The Four Winds" and can't recommend it highly enough for fans of sweeping tales, historical fiction, and underdogs.

Elsa Martinelli, a young mother of two, must find in herself the strength she doesn't know she possesses. While the country suffers through the Great Depression, Elsa must decide to stay in the drought ravaged Texas Panhandle or head west to California in search of the American Dream. This novel was moving and heartbreaking and at times incredibly difficult to read. The simple things in life we take for granted like clean water, a home and having money to support your family are the very things that destroyed many lives during the Depression. The courage and perseverance demonstrated by Elsa and those around her who continued to fight for a fair chance at a good life for their children and themselves was admirable and heart-wrenching. An excellent historical fiction for all!

This book was stunning. Hannah’s characters have such emotional pull, but not in a manipulative way. They feel like living, breathing humans and all the reader wants is to see them at peace and successful. 

Elsa is one of the best characters I’ve read in along time. She is not a loud, evocative character hat jumps off the page, but she grabs readers from page one and doesn’t let go until they turn that final page. She is quiet and uncomplaining; at times her daughter feels she should have opinions where she has none. She appears meek and homely, but underneath her quiet exterior is a passionate, frustrated mother determined to survive anything that 1930s Texas and California can throw at her. 

I am an unashamed history buff, but I have a noticeable gap in my knowledge about the Dust Bowl. I know the basics and have read ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and that’s where my knowledge fairly ends. It was refreshing to pick up a historical fiction not centering on World War II. I left the book with a desire to learn more about this time in American history. 

Easily one of my favorite Kristin Hannah books yet. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a eARC of this beautiful book in exchange for an honest review.

The Four Winds is amazing, and in my opinion, Kristin Hannah's best book yet! It is about the Great Depression, about loss and fear but also hope and love and friendship. It's about the strength and courage that we carry. As a piece of historical fiction, its compulsively readable, but it's more than that. In these dark and troubling times it's a welcome reminder that if we can find a path forward together there's not just a better day coming, but the chance of a better world.  Four Winds is an absolute stunner.

In The Four Winds, Elsa is forced to live her life through books due to an illness as a teen, but decides that she deserves more. Fast forward to Elsa and her family living through the worst of the Dust Bowl on their Texas farm. Faced with the need to see her children healthy, Elsa moves west to California for the promise of work.

While I haven't read all of Hannah's novels, I have enjoyed her more recent books. It is clear that she spent a lot of time researching the Dust Bowl and its environmental affects, but also the ways that it drove families to move and start over. It was interesting to learn about how the programs in the New Deal affected workers and the challenges people faced. While the novel was incredibly written and the characters were well developed, I found myself asking where the plot was going the closer I got to the end. Despite this, I would still recommend the read!

This book had me in tears several times! Kristin Hannah books have a tendency to do that to me, and it was fun explaining to my kids why tears were spurting out of my eyes randomly today! The Four Winds is quite a gorgeous novel, a near perfect mix of family, devastating trauma, travel, history, and strength. Once you start you won’t be able to put it down!

Elsa Martinelli spends most of her teens being shut out and put down by her family, until she makes a choice that finds her thrown into a completely different life, that of a farmer’s wife in the Great Plains of Texas. There are years of abundance, followed by years of drought, of dust storms, and of pain, and Elsa finds herself at a crossroads where she must choose whether to leave, and follow the roads to California, or to stay and face a long, slow, dusty death. 

This is a part of history that I haven’t really studied as much in depth as I have others, and I found Elsa’s story super insightful. Of course we have all seen photos of the Depression: images of dire poverty and of helplessness, but also images of strength and resolve. I love how the author took this very dark period in US history and turned the story of one family into the story of many. While California seemed to promise a step out of poverty, migrants instead found themselves in the same dire situations as they had at home, except this time without even a roof over their heads. This, in addition to the fact that California residents treated the migrants terribly, farm owners/growers used their dire situations as a way to pay them way less than they were worth, and federal relief was an absolute joke, created a deep hole that people could never dig themselves out of.

I know everyone uses The Grapes of Wrath to refer to this period of US history, so it was really nice to read about this time from a woman’s point of view, with several women protagonists. Obviously this is fiction, and there are elements that have been changed/modified in order to fit the narrative better, but all in all it works really, really well. There are a few areas where I wish the author had dug into a little deeper (the period of abundance is swept over, and I really wouldn’t have mind if the novel had been longer and contained a little more backstory on Elsa’s first years of marriage, and I would have loved to have more information on how things changed after the strikes and riots in California), but overall this is a really great read. If you love historical fiction this is definitely one for the TBR!

And, because of everything that happened in 2020 (and that is still happening today), it is really interesting to read about this period of dark history during another piece of what will soon be also considered dark history.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

This book is the fourth or fifth I have read by this author and it's definitely my favorite. I fell in love with the female lead character right away in this historical fiction novel as you couldn't help but want to root for her.

The story takes place in the 1930s during the Dust Bowl Era. Elsa and her family are experiencing the same hardships as so many other farmers from that time period. Fair warning, this is a bleak and depressing read and it was very similar to the reading experience I had with Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, The Long Winter, in which I kept asking myself how much more can these poor people take? But before you are left with the impression this is a total downer of a story, it also presents the opportunity to witness characters' strength, grit, determination, courage, etc. in doing what they could to survive when the odds were certainly stacked against them.

A terrific idea by the author to feature this time period in her book. You can actually see quite a few parallels between the story and things going on in this country and around the world in recent years.

Elsa is a character worth knowing and I highly recommend this one if you are a fan of historical fiction novels.

***3 Stars***

This book was brutal.

Which I possibly should have expected considering the era in which this story takes place, and I did to an extent, I mean you don’t pick up a book that takes place during the Great Depression and think it’s going to be all wine and roses, but this was brutal mixed with a lot of grit and small dashes of hope and light ~ personally I could have used a little more light. But it is what it is. 

While I can’t say that I loved this book, I can say that all of the characters were well written and held their own in the story. Elsa, I hurt for from the start and cannot deny that I  enjoyed watching her grow, become stronger and find herself, even in the most dire of situations and doing so much of it because of, and for her family. I loved watching her relationship with Rosa and Tony blossom. And though her relationship with Loreda was a rocky one, the love she had for her never faltered.

This is my first read by the author and I will be the first to admit that I probably should have picked a book that took place in another era, but in a strange way I am happy that this one was my first because it showed me that the author not only does her research and goes deep, but isn’t afraid to go big, even if it may not be what the reader would want. So, I’m definitely going to be checking out her books and maybe picking an era that will work a tinsy bit better for me.

~ Copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley & voluntarily reviewed ~

Gutwrenchingly, soul crushingly, sad novel that will leave you emotionally depleted when you're done. As a woman, as a mother, as a human, this book GOT to me. A mark of an amazing hisotrial author is when the reader is left craving more information....more knowledge about the time period that was written. That's what this book did for me. I immediately jumped onto my Ancestry page to see where exactly in Kansas were my grandparents. I have photos of them from this time and they look utterly destroyed. 

You won't be the same after you read this book. While it IS absolutely worth picking up, know that there are no happy moments. Just one terrible calamity after the other. It's why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. I kept looking for hope, waiting for it really. It doesn't come.

Thank you Netgalley, for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3785469754

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of The Four Winds. I have to start by saying this is a tough read, but very moving and beautifully written. It is set in Texas and California during the Greta Depression and the Dust Bowl. I did not know much about the farmers fight to keep their land during this time and I can not imagine the tough times that they went through. I did not start out really liking the main character, Elsa, but I ended up respecting her drive and determination and desire to give her children more. This is a story about family, sacrifice, poverty, despair and very sad during most of the book.  It makes me appreciate everything I have, even during our current tough times. I can not imagine going through the hardships that these people did. Definitely an eye opener and a novel that makes you think about how you treat people.

There is no doubt Kristin Hannah is the queen of historical fiction. The amount of research she puts in to accurately portray her characters struggles is nothing short of impressive. The Four Winds was an incredible story of a woman living in the farmlands of Texas during a terrible drought which happened to be during the Great Depression. This story was so well written, it invoked strong emotions within myself reading and feeling every horrible event in the main characters life. With that being said, I don't feel that 2020 was the year for me to read this story. It was bleak from the beginning to the end. While I did learn so much while reading this, it left me horribly depressed every time I set it down. I struggled with what I was going to rate this, unsure if I should base it on how terrible it made me feel or how beautifully it was written and I've decided to do both. Only a truly talented author could make me experience this type of emotion and I believe her point wasn't to make me feel good while reading it, but bring awareness to an overlooked group of Americans during one of our darkest times in history and she succeeded. 4.75 stars

Married with two children, Elsa must decide whether she remains on her family's beloved farm during the Dust Bowl crisis of the 1930s waiting for rain, or heads west for a chance at a better life. Which will she choose, and what are the consequences of her decision?

After 5-star LOVING The Great Alone, The Nightingale, and Home Front by this author (and 4-star loving many more), this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021. Ever since reading the premise, which reminded me of The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (4 stars) by Timothy Egan, I was excited to read it and learn more about the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

The Four Winds definitely provided me with more information about that bleak time in American history and as always, the author's writing was immersive and vivid. Unfortunately, the entire story was also depressing as hell. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a sad book, but there also has to be HOPE, and it was truly lacking in this story. Well, I guess there was an inkling of it in the Epilogue, but it just wasn't enough for me.

Overall, I really struggled with my rating for this book because much of it was good (until the over the top, melodramatic ending anyway), but since I can't go with 3.5 stars, I'm rounding down to 3 since it's my least favorite book by this author after Comfort & Joy (2 stars).

Location: 1921-1940 Texas and California

What’s your favorite Kristen Hannah book?

🌾Book Review🌾
 
Thank you @stmartinspress and @kristinhannahauthor and @netgalley for my copy for review.

🌾My Thoughts🌾
In true Kristen Hannah fashion this book is so well written with so much passion. You will root for Elsa the whole way, I found my self so attached to her. She really believes love is the most important thing. Her fight to save her family and feed her children, she will do anything! From picking cotton, living in a dirt camp, and then fighting for those workers rights. This really is a story of women’s bravery and fight to make things right in the world as much as they can. Her daughter Loreda is extremely strong willed and optioned, and was some time harsh on her mom but she just wanted what was right, people to be able to work and make fair wages. 
Oh man that ending I was so invested in Elsa and her love, I just balled. 
4.5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a really hard book for me to rate. While it was a good story, it was depressing as hell, where was the hope? I get that it was a tough time in the world but at some point there had to have been some hope. 

I learned a lot about the Dust Bowl and the unfortunate way the migrants were treated after their long journey to California where there should have been jobs and a bright future. 

I recently read and loved The Nightingale, and of course The Great Alone was amazing, so this author remains an auto read for me, but this book left me sad in a time when we all need a little hope.

The Four Winds
Kristin Hannah
Julia Whelan


Kristin Hannah has written some unforgettable novels every one featuring a strong determined woman, but this time she’s outdone herself with The Four Winds, a visceral, disturbing, eloquent yet timely historical masterpiece. While reading/listening to this novel the audience will be transported to the great plains and then to California during the depression and subsequent dust bowl where Kristin’s beautiful, painful majestic narrative will pull images straight from Ken Burns documentary, The Dust Bowl and implant these disconcerting pictures into the heads of her readers. The characters, every one is unforgettable, from Elsa’s overbearing parents, to her weak husband Raphe to her incredible in-laws, Rose and Tony. Then there are Elsa and her children who star in the entire novel, Anthony (Ant) is adorable and has to grow up in such a hurry and is a testament to the durability of children. Loreda is an enigma, a normal teenaged girl with all the smart mouthed attitude and yet she’s also robbed of her young womanhood and thrown into the chaos that is being a US immigrant in California during the dust bowl and yet she’s exceptionally inspiring. And then there’s Elsa, what an incredible, remarkable, unsinkable woman, a woman who in spite of being told at a young age she’d never amount to anything takes her children on a thousand mile journey all by themselves and survives. There are also some really fantastic supporting characters like Elsa’s friend Jean from the ditch camp and of course near the end Jack but it’s Elsa by far that is the real stand out with Loreda a second in this novel.  For any fan of historical literary fiction, strong women protagonists, women’s fiction and of course fans of this incredible master storyteller will find it impossible to put this fast paced, headed straight to the top of the best-seller list, two tissue box, novel down.
Kristin Brava!

Narration:
Julia Whelan is herself a master storyteller because it’s absolute magic how she brings this novel to life for listeners. Her emotional rendering will bring tears and laughter and she portrays every character perfectly, men women and children. In fact her Anthony (Ant) is absolutely precious. Have the tissues close when you put those earbuds in.

After-Note:
Listeners will get an extra special treat at the end of the novel Macmillan audio hosts a conversation with Kristin and Julia where listeners will get inside information about how the novel came to be, where the characters came from, the research and the reason for the unexpected ending. So don’t miss out on this.

In 1934 Elsa Martinelli and her family have been ravaged by drought dust and wind. The crops won’t grow, her husband has left them and all she has in the world are her beloved in-laws and her precocious teenaged daughter Loreda and young son Anthony. Having vowed never to leave this land and the people who have become her family she’s forced to make a difficult decision when after the worst dust storm ever that becomes known as Black Sunday, Anthony almost dies from dust pneumonia. Her in-laws won’t hear of leaving but know she has no choice so they send her off in the old farm truck with food and supplies west to California until its safe to come home. But when they get there its not the land of opportunity unless you’re a greedy grower/land-owner. For them like the multitude of other dust bowl escapees either living in ditch camps along the side of the road or the “lucky ones” who live inside the grower’s cabins and owe their soul to the company store, its hard labor and never enough to make ends meet. So instead of the American Dream they find themselves inside a living nightmare and Elsa knows she will do anything she has to, to keep her children safe. What she doesn’t know is how she’ll ever get them home again.