I wanted to rave about this title.  It had so many positive things going for it, but the story just never reached its full potential for me.

What I loved: 
Time period. The Dust Bowl and Great Depression. 
Writing: Immersive and vivid. I could almost feel the dust in my chest, heat on my skin, and the hunger in my belly. 
Characters: Elsa's strength as both a woman and a mother is admirable. When I tried to put myself in her shoes it felt overwhelming. I really appreciated the way the relationship between her and her daughter evolved. 

What I didn't love:
Tone: It is relentlessly bleak.  I mean it takes place during a time of immense, almost unbearable hardship, so . . .Ending: I kept waiting for the big culminating moment. When it happened it was jarring, melodramatic and a bit surreal. I felt manipulated and I didn't agree with where the author took certain characters. My reaction was, "What? Are you kidding me? Come on!" 

One surprising yet positive side effect is that after reading this book I've been looking at the material things in my life differently.  Just our day-to-day life in a comfortable home. Having plentiful food, ample clothing, and steady employment is something that I never take for granted, but this book shed a new light on those luxuries. 

This is the 9th Kristin Hannah book I've read.

Wonderful book . Hannah has a way of creating heartbreakingly beautiful characters. This one is as good as The Great Alone!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book

There isn't too many topics that Kristin Hannah couldn't write and make them enjoyable... even the Great Depression

This was a really interesting look at the dust bowl and life during the great depression as well as how the US citizen migrant workers were treated. An especially relevant read for current times

Maybe this was the wrong time for me to read this particular book; I found it heartbreakingly depressing to read, with very little bright spots to keep me going. This will not be one of my favorite Kristin Hannah titles; I had to stop and start the book multiple times to actually finish.

This book was AWESOME! We begin the book meeting main character, Elsa and her 'well to do' family. 'Well to do' does not mean kind, generous or loving. Fast forward and Elsa is on a Texas farm with her husband, their two children and her in laws. They are living through the depression when the Dust Bowl begins and continues for years. The live stock are gone, the crops are gone and you just don't think that things could get any worse. Well, they do! Elsa will do what it takes to keep her children safe.

This is not one of those feel good, everything is going to be wonderful kind of stories. It does, however, show the power of a woman and what she can accomplish for those she loves. This is the kind of book that you read when you are looking for an ugly cry moment.

My thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for this advanced readers copy. This book is due to release in February 2021.

Kristin Hannah has written another heart wrenching book capturing the hard times during the Dust Bowl. Her characters are well developed along with the devastating descriptions of the land, poverty and the struggle to stay alive. Her writing is reminiscent of John Steinbeck. Along with the hard times they endured there was also a love for one another and the courage to help their fellow man. Well written and researched by a gifted author!

As soon as I began reading The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, I thought of this famous photograph:



The woman gives us a hefty dose of despair. She reminds me of the main character of Elsa. When we first meet her, she is an outcast, a misfit. Her family treats her differently because of her bout with an illness when she was younger. At twenty-five, she is sheltered and not allowed to do much more than stay in the house.

One night she gets dressed up to go out on the town like a normal woman and her father tries to stop her. She goes anyway and fueled by her anger; she does something regrettable that sets the course of her life.

Soon she’s married to Rafe, an Italian immigrant five years younger than her, and shunned by her parents. Elsa moves in with his parents, Tony and Rosa. She works on their struggling wheat farm.

This is during the Great Depression when the Dust Bowl sweeps through Texas, leaving many fighting for their survival. Rafe is a dreamer who wants more from life, and he chooses to leave Elsa and their children. As she struggles to care for the farm and her kids, Elsa decides to head to California. There are rumors of things being better out west. Well, they couldn’t be much worse, could they?

Once in California with her children, she lives in poverty, nearly starving. Her son goes barefoot until he receives a pair of hand-me-down shoes with holes in them. The only work available is brutal cotton-picking then in the other season, picking fruit. Elsa and her kids live in a tent and barely make enough money to get food. Finally, she gets a job where she can live in a cottage but she is constantly in debt because the owner of the farm forces his workers to buy everything on credit. She can’t get ahead, no matter how hard she works.

I kept waiting for Elsa’s luck to turn. But the hardship is bleak and never-ending. Things look up a little when she meets Jack, a man who tries to organize workers into a union and believes in communism. Elsa’s strong-willed daughter, Loreda turns out to be just as tough as Elsa whose transformation in the book is heroic.

As I read this book, I could almost feel the scorch of the sun burning my skin, the dry air, the dust-clogged atmosphere. I felt the sting of poverty and rumble of a hungry stomach. Kristin’s writing is, as usual, top-notch.

If you’re wanting to read an uplifting story, this is not the book for you. It is extremely heavy and depressing. It’s all about hard times and heartbreak.

The dust storms of the Texas panhandle have been devastating for Elsa and her family who already faced insurmountable obstacles. Leaving Texas and moving to California in hopes of dreams coming true ended in more heartbreak.

While The Four Winds is disturbing, it is also compelling. What I liked about this book is that it is well written and solid with believable characters who are tenacious and brave.

What I absolutely did not like was the author espousing socialism and communism later in the book. Have you really researched these -isms that promise failure, Ms. Hannah, like Cuba, Venezuela, and the USSR? Don’t forget about those countries that tried it and then rejected it, like Israel, India, and Sweden. Your support of communism was as disturbing to me as your story.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I don't have enough good things to say about this book. I honestly expected to be let down because I didn't think it could get any better after The Great Alone, but wow, this is DAZZLING. And the relevancy!! I know Kristin Hannah had no way of predicting current times, but the parallels between The Four Winds and modern day really hit home. There are so many lessons and takeaways in this story. Brilliant characterization, rich scenery, and a heart-wrenching plot will make this an instant best-seller. Well done.

Elsa grows up pretty much ignored by her socialite family. Never pretty enough she is reminded of it constantly. Through the choices she makes she finds herself married with 2 children. They are living in the dustbowl of Texas during the depression.
What follows is the story of a women who finds her inner strength with her life's many tribulations.
Kristin Hannah gives us a strong, well written character whose story will not be forgotten.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for an honest review.

Elsa takes her 2 children and flees Texas during the 1930s to find a better life in California. She tries to find work and eventually does, as a cotton picker. But the conditions are not good for her and her children until they meet a man with a plan...

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read the arc of this book.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is a novel not to be missed. If you have read “The Nightingale” by Ms Hannah you will appreciate what a remarkable author she is.
“The Four Winds” is set during the Great Depression in the Dust bowl state of Texas. It tells of the courage of Elsa and how she became a warrior. Her love for her children never wavers nor her desire to make a home for them.
It is hard to imagine the way the migrants were treated. Ms Hannah makes you feel the pain, both physically and emotionally, that they are going through.
Please read this book.

I love K. Hannah, and was anxiously awaiting her new novel "The Four Winds". Set in the 1930's during the American "Dust Bowl", it is a fitting tribute to the struggles of the American sprit both then and now. It centers on Elsa, a lonely and unloved Texas panhandle girl, who finds a place with an Italian family, the Martinellis as the Dust Bowl comes to Texas to claim their farm, and the choices she will make as a wife and mother and the journey she must endure. It would not be a K. Hannah book if the road was not long, hard and painful, and heart-wrenching and the reader was not crying at some point. I knew little about this actual point in history before reading this book, so afterwards, I availed myself of the internet to read more about it and what caused it and how it ended. I highly recommend this novel, and think it ranks among her best work. Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for the ARC.

I received a copy of this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This is going to be the book of 2021. Once again Kristin Hannah knocks it out of the park.

When Elsa is growing up, her family told her she couldn't do anything and she was sickly from an illness as a child. She believed she was ugly and not worthy. When her family disowns her, she lives with her new husband Rafe and his parents. on their family farm. Fast forward and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl years hit and Elsa is forced to choose between staying in Texas where the weather and storms could kill her kids or take a chance on a better life and move to California.

Once in California, she discovers that they don't want her there either. She is force to live in a migrant camp where dysentery and the elements make life a struggle while picking cotton on a farm. Her daughter, now 14, is rebellious and wants a better life and just like any teenager, argues and disobeys Elsa.

Things come to a head when Elsa and the other migrant workers begin to fight back for better pay against the wealthy land owners. She learns that she is a bad ass and stronger than she ever realized. I don't want to give too much away but the ending was just WOW!

Kristin Hannah's books always destroy me. It takes me a few days to recover from the emotional upheaval she puts us through. In The Four Winds, Esla, the main character, is tortured but in a compelling, women's historical fiction kind of way. (Much like the sisters in The Nightengale). The story is about the great migration during the Depression and the Dust Bowl and the desperate, desperate conditions the misnamed "Okies" lived in once they arrived in California.

But the real story, the REAL story, is about mothers and daughters and the tragic and glorious relationships between them.

And I think too, the real story is about the strength of women. "Women are the weaker sex" was made up by men because they are, deep down, terrified by the strength they see in women.

Just what you would expect from Kristen Hannah, an unforgettable tale that will stay with you long after you put it down.

Elsa grew up being ignored and unloved by her well to do family. When she escapes for a night and thinks she's fond love she ends up pregnant. Her family disowns her and leaves her at the doorstep of the Martinellis.

It's there that she discovers love of a family, despite the distance of her husband. Then the dust bowl starts and devestates everything around her.

In the Texas panhandle in 1934, severe drought plagues the land. With crops failing, dust storms whip up, leaving the farmers fighting for survival. In the perilous times of the Great Depression, Elsa Martinelli must decide whether to stay and fight for her land or head west to California which offers her family a better life.

With her characteristically gorgeous storytelling, Hannah's The Four Winds is an updated Grapes of Wrath. You'll find yourself caught up in the disastrous calamity of the Dust Bowl and emotionally caught up in Elsa's impossible decision. Kristin Hannah's fans will not be disappointed with her newest release.

Hope is a coin I carry: ...

The land we loved turned on us, broke us all ...

I enjoy Kristin Hannah's writing. I was excited to receive an ARC, I will recommend this book upon release.

Another page-turner by Kristin Hannah. I read this book in one day because I just couldn't put it down. Set in the 1930s, this is the story of Elsa, from a well-to-do family in a Texas town. After a life-changing decision, Elsa finds herself living with a farming family and learning to love the land and work hard. She's also learning a lot about family and hard work. But, when the drought comes and decides to overstay its welcome, she chooses to take her family and go make a living in California, where she finds a new battle to fight. I found this story so interesting because my grandfather and his family were migrant workers due to the drought and the came from the dust bowl area. I highly recommend this book.

I received a copy of this book free from the publisher.

I loved this book so much! Kristin Hannah is the best and I can't get enough of her strong female lead characters. Elsa was no exception. Probably still prefer Nightingale but this was a wonderful book and taught me so much about the Dust Bowl and "Oakies". The relationship between Elsa and her parents and then Elsa and her own daughter were so well thought out and developed. Wonderful book!!