#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 USA TODAY BESTSELLER#1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER#1 INDIE BESTSELLER”The Four Winds seems eerily prescient in 2021 . . . Its message is galvanizing and hopeful: We are a nation of scrappy survivors. We’ve been in dire straits before; we will be again. Hold your people close.”—The New York Times“A spectacular tour de force that shines a spotlight on the … close.”—The New York Times
“A spectacular tour de force that shines a spotlight on the indispensable but often overlooked role of Greatest Generation women.”—People
“Through one woman’s survival during the harsh and haunting Dust Bowl, master storyteller, Kristin Hannah, reminds us that the human heart and our Earth are as tough, yet as fragile, as a change in the wind.” —Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.
“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.
By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.
In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it—the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
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What a book! Wow!!
If you want a strong, courageous, downright heart wrenching novel with a woman named Elsa Martinelli and her lionhearted children, this is it!
Elsa Martinelli has a good life living on a farm with her in-laws and two children in Texas during the 1930’s.
Then in the blink of an eye — The dust bowl comes with no rain, wind storms and no crops! Their farm animals are dying, crops are withered, and food and water are scarce! People have dust pneumonia.
Life has taken a dramatic turn!
Elsa decides after much turmoil to take her children and seek out a better life in California.
“Courage is fear you ignore.” She will make this journey for her family!
This is the land of hope, good and plenty!
Will they find the rainbow or just more devastation?
At this time in our country with our own pandemic, this is certainly an emotional, thought provoking novel that I read deliberately.
I could feel all the pain, heartache and challenges during this time in history and how similar they are at this present time to then!
Ten stars for this brilliant story!
It will not be forgotten anytime soon!
Wow! When you read a book
written by Kristin Hannah you know going into it, you will meet people who have strength, courage and true grit ! A book that will teach you, stay with you, and writing that pulls you into the story , and for the entire book you are there, with the characters, their families, their struggles and the triumphs.
Elsa is born into a rich family who doesn’t know her, and doesn’t love her. She has this desire to be loved. She wants a life where she can be judged on more than her appearance. When she meets Rafe she mistakes his lust for love and when she becomes pregnant and her family disowns her, it is Rafe’s family that takes her in, and Rafe marries her. Elsa grows to love Rafe but Rafe constantly wants a better life than being a farmer in Texas.
Rafes parents become the parents Elsa never had, hard-working farmers who fall on very hard times. The hard times become way too much for the couples youngest son, and he has to be taken out of the dust bowl that has become Texas, and they migrate to California hoping for a healthy and safer life. That is not what they get .
I love this family, this family went through so many hard times, so much pain and suffering, all they had was their love for each other.
This is a book about America and about migrant workers. This is a book about the farmers and the hard times that befell Americans in the 1930s, The Great Depression and the fallout from the stock market crash.
I loved Elsa, she had more grit and courage than she ever thought she had.
I am a huge fan of this author and I love that she writes of strong females and lives that don’t break them but make them stronger and mold the generations after them to be just as strong .
A huge 5 star “ don’t miss “ read!
A huge thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review .