Release Day! The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah ~ My Thoughts #TheFourWinds #NetGalley

 Release Day!

Congrats Kristin
on the release today of 
The Four Winds!

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Historical Fiction, 464 pages

Published February2, 2021 by St. Martin's Press

The Four Winds, by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah, is an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America's most defining eras—the Great Depression.

"If I close my eyes, I can still taste the dust..."

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods. The crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman who will discover the best in herself in the worst of times. 

My thoughts about The Four Winds ~~

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)

First lines—"Hope is a coin I carry: an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love."

Kristin's books always seem a little daunting to me when I pick one up—they are all a bit hefty. But the subject matter she writes about is always so interesting to me and I find myself flying through the pages. The Four Winds was exactly that and so much more. So many pages but oh, it was so, so good! 

The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression were devastating times for the United States, especially in the Plains states. The Four Winds personalizes the hardship and struggles of the time, through the lives of Elsa Martinelli and her family. What they, and others like them, had to endure was heartbreaking—everything in their lives was either lost or taken away.

I absolutely loved this story and learned so much about the time period and the unimaginable conditions that everyone had to endure. I know I will be thinking about Elsa and her family for a very long time. This is a story that I highly recommend, especially for lovers of historical fiction or American history. 

I received an ARC of The Four Winds via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

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About the author

Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbuster, The Nightingale, which was named Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People's Choice award for best fiction in the same year. Additionally, it was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week. Her novel, The Great Alone, was also voted as Goodreads best historical novel of the year in 2018.

Kristin's highly anticipated new release, The Four Winds will be published on February 9, 2021 (St. Martin's Press). The novel is a sweeping, emotional story of love, family, and survival, set in Texas and California during the dark days of The Great Depression. It is a portrait of one indomitable woman who will do anything to keep her family together.

The Nightingale is currently in production at Tri Star, with award-winning director Melanie Laurent set to direct a cast led by Dakota and Elle Fanning.

Firefly Lane, starring Katherine Heigl, Sarah Chalke and Ben Lawson, is set to premiere on Netflix in early 2021. ~ Goodreads

Connect with Kristin

Website | Instagram | Facebook | Goodreads

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Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Book Spotlight #Giveaway! Night Road by Kristin Hannah #NightRoad

I have sooooo many books! The Book Spotlight Giveaway feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to clear my shelves, to share some of the many books I have, and to give someone else the opportunity to enjoy these treasures.

I read this book with my book club and we all absolutely loved it! Be ready with some tissues, this one was definitely a tearjerker for me. You can read my thoughts here.

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

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Night Road

Night Road by Kristin Hannah
Hardcover, 385 pages
Published March 22nd 2011 by St. Martin's Press

Jude Farraday is a happily married, stay-at-home mom who puts everyone’s needs above her own. Her twins, Mia and Zach, are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill enters their lives, no one is more supportive than Jude. A former foster child with a dark past, Lexi quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable. But senior year of high school brings unexpected dangers and one night, Jude’s worst fears are confirmed: there is an accident. In an instant, her idyllic life is shattered and her close-knit community is torn apart. People—and Jude—demand justice, and when the finger of blame is pointed, it lands solely on eighteen-year-old Lexi Baill. In a heartbeat, their love for each other will be shattered, the family broken. Lexi gives up everything that matters to her—the boy she loves, her place in the family, the best friend she ever had—while Jude loses even more.

When Lexi returns, older and wiser, she demands a reckoning. Long buried feelings will rise again, and Jude will finally have to face the woman she has become. She must decide whether to remain broken or try to forgive both Lexi…and herself.

Night Road is a vivid, emotionally complex novel that raises profound questions about motherhood, loss, identity, and forgiveness. It is an exquisite, heartbreaking novel that speaks to women everywhere about the things that matter most.

About the author

Kristin Hannah is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbuster, The Nightingale, Winter Garden, Night Road, and Firefly Lane.

Her novel, The Nightingale, has been published in 43 languages and is currently in movie production at TriStar Pictures, which also optioned her novel, The Great Alone. Her novel, Home Front has been optioned for film by 1492 Films (produced the Oscar-nominated The Help) with Chris Columbus attached to direct.

Kristin is a former-lawyer-turned writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. Her novel, Firefly Lane, became a runaway bestseller in 2009, a touchstone novel that brought women together, and The Nightingale, in 2015 was voted a best book of the year by Amazon, Buzzfeed, iTunes, Library Journal, Paste, The Wall Street Journal and The Week.  Additionally, the novel won the coveted Goodreads and People’s Choice Awards. The audiobook of The Nightingale won the Audiobook of the Year Award in the fiction category. ~ Author's website

Connect with Kristin

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

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Home Front by Kristin Hannah

In her bestselling novels Kristin Hannah has plumbed the depths of friendship, the loyalty of sisters, and the secrets mothers keep. Now, in her most emotionally powerful story yet, she explores the intimate landscape of a troubled marriage with this provocative and timely portrait of a husband and wife, in love and at war.

All marriages have a breaking point. All families have wounds. All wars have a cost. . . .

Like many couples, Michael and Jolene Zarkades have to face the pressures of everyday life---children, careers, bills, chores---even as their twelve-year marriage is falling apart. Then an unexpected deployment sends Jolene deep into harm’s way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls. As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a solider she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored version of her life on the front lines, shielding her family from the truth. But war will change Jolene in ways that none of them could have foreseen. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his darkest fear and fight a battle of his own---for everything that matters to his family.

At once a profoundly honest look at modern marriage and a dramatic exploration of the toll war takes on an ordinary American family, Home Front is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor, and ultimately, hope. ~~ synopsis from Goodreads

Our thoughts about Home Front ~~

My book group, The Book Bags, won copies of Home Front and we read it for our January meeting. A year ago, we all read Night Road by Hannah also. We enjoyed both of these books, they both deal with situations that are of the times right now and are very emotional. I personally, found myself having to stop after reading some of the chapters, just to catch my breath and compose myself. Wonderful writing, Kristin!

Home Front deals with a soldier wife and mom who gets deployed and has to leave her family for a year. All of the family members have to deal with a lot of changes while Jolene is gone. And then even more when she comes home. And this whole process is definitely not an easy thing to go through, for anyone. As one of our members remarked, 'This book should be required reading for every family who has to go through this.'

We talked about all the various names for the condition that soldiers suffer that have been used in the past: PTSD, shell shock, battle fatigue, shell shock and soldier's heart. Another member shared with us that this story made her think of her dad and what he went through when he came home. All soldiers suffer immensely after witnessing war, no matter which war it is.

A wonderful line that we talked about a lot went something like this ~ we get trained to go to war, but not how to come home. This is so true and this book gives us just a small glimpse of how much devastation can happen to families when one member does come back from war; they are definitely changed.

Another comment made was the fact that this story had the wife/mom going off to war as opposed to the husband/dad. This story gives us a very different point of view from what we usually think about when we hear that someone has been deployed.

The most likable characters in the story, for us anyway, were Conny, the physical therapist who lays it on the line for Jolene and Mila, Jolene's mother-in-law. We loved them both! And the least favorite was Michael, who really needed to 'figure it out'.

Overall, we all really loved the story and love Kristin's writing. Some did feel that the story line was sort of predictable but that it did not take away from the enjoyment and emotions of the story.

Thanks to ReadingGroupGuides.com for sending us copies of this wonderful book!

The Book Bags Book Group

There are usually 8 of us but there were some conflicts the night we met and not everyone could attend. It happens. We had a great discussion though.

The Book Bags with our wonderful waiter,
who takes very good care of us when we meet at Perkins.

About the author

Kristin Hannah is the New York Times bestselling author of eighteen novels, including the blockbuster Firefly Lane and Night Road. She is a former lawyer turned writer and is the mother of one son. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii with her husband.

Connect with Kristin

Website | Facebook | Goodreads

Night Road by Kristin Hannah

For a mother, life comes down to a series of choices.
To hold on…
To let go..
To forget…
To forgive…
Which road will you take?

For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows—her twins, Mia and Zach—are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.

Jude does everything to keep her kids safe and on track for college. It has always been easy-- until senior year of high school. Suddenly she is at a loss. Nothing feels safe anymore; every time her kids leave the house, she worries about them.

On a hot summer’s night her worst fears come true. One decision will change the course of their lives. In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything. In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.
 

Night Road is vivid, emotionally complex novel that raises profound questions about motherhood, identity, love, and forgiveness. It is a luminous, heartbreaking novel that captures both the exquisite pain of loss and the stunning power of hope. This is Kristin Hannah at her very best, telling an unforgettable story about the longing for family, the resilience of the human heart, and the courage it takes to forgive the people we love. ~~synopsis from Goodreads

My thoughts on Night Road ~~ 

OMG - this is one amazing book! I loved it but I don't think I have cried so hard over a book in such a long time. This story is so emotional and heartbreaking but I could not stop reading it. Kristin Hannah writes so well that I was truly in the story and bonded with this family as if they were my own and felt the emotions that they were feeling.

Jude, the mother of teenage twins, Mia and Zach is so entrenched in her children's lives that when the unthinkable happens, she cannot forgive or forget and everything and everyone in her life falls away. Can she ever get past it and have a life again? The emotions that everyone feels and goes through are just gut-wrenching but the sobering thought I kept having was that this kind of things 'could' happen to anyone, at anytime ~ it is not just a 'story'. 

This book is one that I would have read straight through in one sitting, if I could've. (Darn, I should have just called in sick ~ hehe) I had a hard time putting it down but I also did not want it to end. 

My book group won copies of Night Road from the ReadingGroupGuides.com Registered Book Group Contest (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!) and we read the book in February. I am extremely slow at getting our thoughts posted about this book but that does not take away from the fact that all 8 of us LOVED the book and we had such a great discussion about it. This book does make a great book club book because there are characters that you can just love and other characters that you just want to throttle. And there are so many topics and situations that pertain to teenagers now that we really got into some great discussions. 

And here is my last testimonial about how everyone felt about this book. Some times when we have multiple copies of the same book, we donate them to our local public library so they can create a book club bag for their patrons to check out. Not one person in my book group was willing to part with their copy of Night Road ~ we all still have it on our personal bookshelves. And I am thinking it's about time to read it again. This would be a great summer read to lose myself in again!

 Author's website