An Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post bestseller.In an unforgettable love story, a woman’s impossible journey through the ages could change everything… memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time.
The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of Dr. Thomas Smith, guardian to a young boy who is oddly familiar. Mistaken for the boy’s long-missing mother, Anne adopts her identity, convinced the woman’s disappearance is connected to her own.
As tensions rise, Thomas joins the struggle for Ireland’s independence and Anne is drawn into the conflict beside him. Caught between history and her heart, she must decide whether she’s willing to let go of the life she knew for a love she never thought she’d find. But in the end, is the choice actually hers to make?
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This was a beautiful book. What a wonderful story and this author is just a great storyteller. I recommend this book and this author.
3.75 “lady of the lough” stars
Amy Harmon is one of those authors that regardless of what she writes I will read it. She could write a Quantum Physics textbook and I’d pick it up because she’s a great writer. The writing in this one was spot on…it’s the story/plot line that didn’t entirely hold my interest.
Anne was raised by her grandfather, her parents having died when she was a child. When her grandfather becomes ill with cancer in 2001, his last few days reveal some treasures he had been saving for Anne, some cryptic comments, and a request to scatter his ashes in a body of water in his native Ireland. While trying to carry out his requests, Anne is transported back in time to 1921 and is mistaken for her great grandmother who has the same name. Dr. Thomas Smith fishes Anne out of the lough and nurses her back to health, and Anne is reunited with her grandfather only he’s a boy of 5 or 6 and thinks she is his mother, back from the dead! 1921 Ireland is a time when the Irish are trying to fight the British to gain sovereignty so there is a lot of unrest and political maneuvering occurring. As a writer and quasi Irish historian Anne is well versed in how history will unfold and finds herself in a strange predicament…is she part of history or making history in being here? And how and when will she return to the future?
You can tell the author did a huge amount of research and I applaud her efforts as I learned a lot about a time and series of events that I was basically ignorant of. There is a very cyclical message imbibed with passing down history and events and remembering our ancestors and our past through storytelling using the wind and the rain as messengers…it was haunting yet beautiful and the use of poetry really added to this almost supernatural nature of the wind knowing all. While this book was beautifully written it was too heavy on the historical and too light on the romance for me so it didn’t keep my interest as well as I was hoping. There was not a lot of conflict so I found it hard to pinpoint the dilemma of the story, which also didn’t help to keep my interest. I didn’t form any real emotional attachment to the characters until the last 1/4th of the story and by then it was too late to make an impact on me. Well written but not my favorite book by this author.
Don’t go near the water, love, the lough will take you far from me.
WHAT THE WIND KNOWS was the perfect mix of history, romance and fantasy. Every word was exquisitely placed, every character perfectly crafted. These characters and this story are truly special.
I fell so fast, so hard, and so completely. Not because love is blind, but because … it’s not. Love isn’t blind, it’s blinding. Glaring. I looked at you, and from the very first day, I knew you …
My love is so big and full and brimming that I can’t breathe around it. It’s terrifying to love so much, knowing how fragile our existence really is. You’re going to have to hold on to me, or I’ll burst … or maybe I’ll just float away. Up into the sky, out into the lough.
My heart ached as I read Anne and Thomas’s story. I yearned for their happy ending. I cried for them and laughed with them. Anne and Thomas had a one of a kind, once in a lifetime love. Thomas was a man of honor, who lived by his morals and fought for what he believed. Because of his passion for life Anne wanted to do more than just live. She wanted to share in all of his experiences and fight along side him and it was her quiet strength that kept Thomas fighting for a better Ireland and for love.
There was so much passion with its pages. Not just passion between Anne and Thomas, but you could feel the passion of those fighting to make Ireland a better place.
Feelings? I felt them all! I experienced every painful moment, every fear, and every awkward moment. I was bursting at the seams with happiness and broken down with sadness. I cried, swooned and cried some more. I. Felt. Everything. When I was nearing the end of the book, I didn’t want to turn the page. I didn’t want this beautiful story to end. I had rivers of tears falling from my eyes and a heart filled with happiness. WHAT THE WIND KNOWS was simply stunning!
WHAT THE WIND KNOWS will no doubt be on my favorites list for 2019, but is also a top favorite from Amy Harmon!
Spellbinding…..Enchanting….Transporting !!
the wind and water know all the earth’s secrets. They’ve seen and heard all that has ever been said or done. And if you listen, they will tell you all the stories and sing every song. The stories of everyone who has ever lived.
FABULOUS story from the esteemed coffers of Harmon, excelling in narration, plot and impact. ALL her books are seeped in colourful emotions, she has a piece of her soul invested in each book. But this book goes a step further. Or should I say several steps backwards!!
This book’s predominant emotion is HEARTACHE. For lost love, for the beloved country, for road back home. It’s not just a simple love story between two people who meet like ships passing in the night of different eras, it’s a deep connection that a person has with one’s soil, roots that tether you to your heritage.
“Don’t let the history distract you from the people who lived it,”
It’s not only historical, it’s HISTORIC. Events we read about in yellowed pages are soaked crimson with blood, charred black with soot and disintegrating under water. Set against the backdrop of Irish uprising, the story is about deep love that Anne shares with Eoin, with Thomas. Friendships she shares with Maeve, Mick & Robbie. Her heart pulls her back and fate moves her forward, and somewhere in between is the Lough Gill. I’ve never had the pleasure of reading such a unique storyline. Not sure I’d ever try it, BUT for Amy Harmon. I trust my reader heart in her hands, assured that she would fill it with love in all its colours.
It was the legend of Oisín and Niamh, where time was not flat and linear but layered and interconnected, a circle that retraced its path again and again, generation after generation, sharing the same space if not the same sphere.
Harmon’s words are wizard’s spells, hypnotic and magnetic, once they’re imprinted on your brain, you just stand there stupefied and stunned. I could decipher the story but couldnt believe my brain what i was reading, I actually had an out of body experience. My eyes were reading them, dancing on the curves and sharp edges of the alphabets, but they spring alive like a theatre reel in all Technicolor in front of me. The line between the world’s blurred, past and present, fact and fiction. Was I living now or then, was I my own ancester,my predecessor, I was a descendant or precursor?
Amy can tell you a tale set in 1912 in Ireland, or 1935 Italy or present day America, she makes you BELIEVE in its authenticity. Carefully weaving threads of fact and fiction, the tapestry she creates is colossal and breathtaking.
“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the disheveled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”
I felt my soul swooping over the fog choked Lough, over the bogs, green rolling hills and in Gravagh Glebe. I became Anne Gallagher, a woman lost between parallel worlds, she is losing her beloved grandfather -Eoin Gallagher and a promise made to him, to transport his ashes to Eirèan, his beloved Ireland. His soul has unfinished business, there is somebody waiting for Anne on the other side of time and Lake……..he loves her too much, misses her too much and sheds tears for her.
“There are some paths that inevitably lead to heartache, some acts that steal men’s souls, leaving them wandering forever after without them, trying to find what they lost,”
As Anne steps on Irish Soil, her fate is sealed. The ashes swirling in the Lough grow wispy tendrils of fog so dense, her past and present lose boundaries and Eoin’s plan is set into motion
I can’t even begin to describe what is the context and precise of the story. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so you must go and read it yourself. The FEELINGS are all IN CAPS. There’s NOTHING that won’t touch you deeply, each mishap, each danger, each dread, multiplies till it just fills you to the brim. I fell in love, like absorbing, all encompassing, to-die-for love with Ireland.
The land, the lore, the legend, the loughs.
“Don’t let the history distract you from the people who lived it,”
Thomas Smith crept in my heart, softly and slowly. Dignified and diligent, he’s all that is good in the world
Anne, the one I met, is serene, kind, compassionate. Her soft smile, reticent love, powerful words just stole my breath. How strong is her mettle that despite finding herself misplaced and displaced, she strives to adjust her constitution. Hangs on to Eoin with focused love.
Michael, I’d like to have read more as a man, rather than a political figure. Maeve is most sassy and Robbie the ever loyalist.
I’m telling you, this book is literally OUT OF THIS WORLD. It took me a while to get into because the beginning is expansive and overwhelming. But as you read on, it’s like you get closer to a huge painting. The characters etch out, their colours get more vibrant, the scenes become clearer and when you reach the halfway mark you will what to widen your eyes to take all of it in.
Take your time to read. Don’t rush it, savour the words, re-read some, let Yeats soak in your senses, join the dots of prose, poems, history and feelings.
Now let me be, I want to stand on the shores of Lough Gill, strain to hear the whistling again….
“They can’t forget, they never will, the wind and waves remember Him still.”
Bless your beautiful heart and God bless your mighty pen Mrs. Harmon.
6 stars for the Travelling Countess
Losing a family member is never easy. For Anne Gallagher – her grandfather was the center of the world. Their times together a source of great happiness that has always seemed to fuel Anne through difficult time. Now that time was coming to an end. Eoin is experiencing the last days that he has on Earth, and he has shared with Anne his desire to find his way back home to Ireland.
Throughout their lives, Ireland was always the elusive place the duo never visited together. So bringing Eoin’s ashes ‘home’ may be difficult, but was also exciting for Anne. Rowing out on that lake to lay Eoin to rest should have been a peaceful and somber event. In a way, it definitely was. Yet – in that moment of clarity, Anne found herself returning to shore in a time that wasn’t her own.
Instead of coming from the lake in modern times, Anne finds herself transported to the 1920s. Back to the home that Eoin was raised in as a child. To add to the uncertainty, Anne is mistaken for her great grandmother who could pass as her twin. With controversy surrounding Anne’s great grandmother’s disappearance, arriving unnoticed definitely was not in the cards.
Life in Ireland during the 20s was full of uncertainty for the people. Anne found herself embroiled in the life of her grandfather while he was still a child. One of the people that Anne leaned upon during this time was Thomas Smith, a local doctor who was also friends with her former great grandparents. As the two begin to spend time together, Anne finds herself learning about the life that her grandfather didn’t share with her during his days of storytelling. An Ireland that is far from the one of today, but one that will set the stage for the country’s future.
What The Wind Knows is the latest book in the Amy Harmon collection. It is full of interesting plot twists that actually are centered around some real life events in Irish history. It was hard not to fall in love with the characters in this book while following them on this unique journey. This one is definitely a classic that shows love knows no boundaries. As with all Harmon reads, you will discover a story that defies the present, but pulls you on a journey that stays with you long after you finish the last chapter. It is a beautifully written homage to the country of Ireland that I wouldn’t have missed for the world!! Kudos Amy!!!
Simply amazing! Smart, romantic, wistful adventure back in time. Ireland, poetry, family bonds, falling in love! Ah, Amy Harmon at her finest! All the stars!!
“There are some paths that inevitably lead to heartache, some acts that steal men’s souls, leaving them wandering forever after without them, trying to find what they lost.”
It is official, Amy Harmon is now one of my all time favorite authors. I am completely in awe and amazed with her magical writing and storytelling abilities. I love all her books and her contemporary and fantasy romance novels are amazing, but I find myself more drawn to her historical novels. It’s probably because I am obsessed with history. What the Wind Knows focuses on the beautiful and heartbreaking history of Ireland. Amy has made me fall in love with this country and its people. This book was perfection from start until finish, it was so unique and original. I felt every sentence deep in my heart, and I couldn’t get enough.
“I fell so fast, so hard, and so completely. Not because love is blind, but because…it’s not. Love isn’t blind, it’s blinding.”
You’ll probably have noticed that the main character time travels into the past, and I am kind of indifferent to that trope, but it was done very well by the author. The story had a great pacing and flow, and the author had really done her research. The character were amazing, and really brought the story to life. It was suspenseful, emotional, heartbreaking, romantic, hopeful and inspiring. I was on the edge of my seat and in tears half of the time. The story is so much more than just a Romance novel. Anne was such an incredible character and my heart wept for her and all the other characters. I know that my review is pretty vague in regards to the plot, but you don’t need to know more than what you read in the synopsis. I recommend this book to everyone!
“It is as if we always were and always will be, as though our love and our lives sprang from the same source and will return to that source in the end, intertwined and indistinguishable. We are ancient. Prehistoric and predestined.”