It's the first book I read by this author and loved the style of writing but I found the story a bit too depressing.
It's one of those case "It's me, not the book" as storytelling and character development are excellent.
The plot is well developed and the historical background is vivid.
Unfortunately I struggled to thoroughly enjoyed as I found it too depressing.
I'm sure other people will love it and I recommend it for the great style of writing.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

What a roller-coaster of emotions this novel takes you on!

The Four Winds takes you on a journey from the Texan Great Plains to California, in 1930s America, where Elsa hopes to relieve her son's breathing difficulties and to make her fortune after a few bad years farming in Texas. But more than that, we follow Elsa's journey of discovery, to find that she is brave, loved, and valued, much more than she originally believed.

There were some great moments in this book: the love Elsa and Loreda show towards each other, Jack and the communists fighting for fair pay, the camp of immigrants just fighting for survival. But the trouble with reading a book so realistic is that in many places the dire situations were repeated, year after year, month after month and in a world where depression and poverty are rising for very different reasons, it just wasn't the great escape I have come to hope for in a novel. I found myself skim reading passages that repeated the misery. I loved Elsa and Loreda though and I'm glad the story reflects both their points of view.

I would recommend this novel, as Hannah writes strong women characters so well but be prepared for sadness as well as bravery and strength!

This book starts in 1921 set in Texas, and shows the life of Elsa as a teenager who feels unloved and neglected by her family, and ugly and worthless within herself. Her family is well to do and appearance is everything. Elsa searches for comfort elsewhere and ends up rejected by her family and thrown to the mercy of the Martinelli family, farm owners with a modest but happy life. That is until the Great Depression and drought in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Illness, abandonment and near starvation cause Elsa to move across the country to California in search of work and a safer life but where instead they were met with prejudice, violence and poverty.

I hadn't read Kristin Hannah before so I wasn't really sure what to expect. This is not a happy book but it had me gripped by the end of the first chapter. I know very little about American history and although I was aware of the Depression, that's all I knew. Elsa's story is one of a tough woman who had little comfort or happiness in her life. Although the events are fictional, I googled a lot of them to find that similar did happen. The prejudice they faced, for example, the inability to access medical care or proper schooling for children. Millions of homeless people who had nothing. Throughout the book, I kept waiting for something nice to happen to Elsa, or some happy ending (in my fairy tale loving imagination) but it didn't happen. Some of the story is seen through the eyes of Elsa's daughter Loreda, a young girl full of anger at the disparity in the USA, and the fact that they seem to have fallen into terrible working conditions and tied to a cotton plantation. I would recommend this book because it's so informative if you like to research and learn things from what you read but be ready for how difficult a read it is.

I absolutely loved both The Great Alone and The Nightingale, and was very excited to be given an eARC of The Four Winds by the same author.
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The setting of Texas...in the Dust Bowl entering into the Great Depression is one that doesn’t feature in many novels (if any) that I can think of. It makes for a wonderfully moody and atmospheric novel...especially with Hannah’s gift for descriptive imaginings and slowly developing tension and engagement.
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The plot also started well, with the central protagonist, Elsa, living in isolation and without love from a family who are ashamed of her, until she stumbles into a life with a new family who expose her to a sense of love and belonging, but accompanying this introducing her to vulnerability and fear.
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Personally, I felt the novel stayed in this part of the plot for far too long. It felt that for a few hundred pages, too little happened, or developed. Usually, Hannah would take the time here to develop an endearing character...but for me that just didn’t happen. I actually found Elsa, and her daughter, to be quite irritating.
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The character I found the most engaging was Rose, and I actually would’ve loved the novel to be set from her perspective, and feel this would have added the depth and emotion I felt the novel was lacking.
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There were a lot of moments where I felt I was rolling my eyes due to the repetitive, and overly caricatured, unoriginal representation of stereotypical character constructs and character arcs (I don’t want to say much more, to avoid any spoilers).
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When the novel does move, in the final third, it moves with pace, but almost too quickly and lacks plausibility, and impact.
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This is by no means a bad novel, and Kristin Hannah is by no means a poor writer. This is easily a 3🐾 book. But being absolutely honest, I think I was just disappointed as the other two books I have read by Hannah were just exceptional, and this, for me, didn’t have the same impact or pull on my emotions in anywhere near the same way.
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Thank you so much to both Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC with a request for an honest review.

The Four Winds is set against a backdrop of the Great Depression and brings to life the Dust Bowl era and one families experience of migration in pursuit of the American Dream. A rheumatic fever in childhood has left Elsinore (Elsa) Wolcott the black sheep of her middle-class family in Dalhart, Texas in 1921 and regarded as an inconvenience alongside her far prettier sisters. Derisively told she will never be marriage material or amount to much she rushes headlong into the arms of the first man to show his kindness, resulting in pregnancy and a forced marriage to an Italian immigrant five years younger. Finding herself living with dreamer Rafe Martinelli and his disgruntled parents whose hopes for a college education for their son are left in tatters they are none too pleased with a daughter-in-law unprepared for a life dictated by the demands of wheat farming. Despite never finding the happiness that she hoped for through her marriage to Rafe, Elsa finds contentment tending the land and forms a profound bond with her in-laws.

But four years of drought bring with it discontentment and decimate the livelihoods of the farmers, sending the value of their land plummeting and unemployment rising. Rafe is seduced by the prospect of a better life and flees in the middle of the night, leaving Elsa a single mother to stroppy twelve-year-old Loreda and seven-year-old Anthony. When the dust storms finally force Elsa’s hand the family of three travel west to California encouraged by the promise of steady work only to discover the hostile reception awaiting incoming migrants flooding into the state. Life for the Martinelli’s is on a crowded migrant camp that is flooded out and the excess of labour enables the cotton farm owners to abuse their workforce by paying meagre wages and ignoring safety standards. As claiming benefits is changed to require residence in the state for a year through a combination of grower and political pressure it leaves incoming migrants impoverished and the courage of Elsa is tested daily right through until the story ends in 1934. Hannah does a superb job of capturing the horrifying experiences including dust storms that reshape the landscape, the brute force of the gritty winds and the lung scarring condition of dust pneumonia and I was never for a moment in doubt about how demoralising it must be to get up and face another day in such testing conditions.

The Four Winds is about Elsa Martinelli’s struggle to be recognised as worthy and break free of the shackles that have crippled her self-esteem throughout her life. As a central character I found Elsa a little remote with an awful lot of her essential goodness relayed to the reader through the prose rather than actively demonstrated. The growth of Elsa’s character was unconvincing to me and despite the many hardships she endured she never quite seemed to overcame her need to stop lamenting about never having been pretty or lovable enough. Even in the final stages of the book, and after being put through the wringer, I still found her hard to connect with despite my empathy for the trials she faced. The book feels like women’s fiction answer to The Grapes of Wrath, complete with a heavy dose of melodrama that is only matched by the unrelenting misery of Elsa Martinelli’s struggles. At times I felt Hannah was a little heavy-handed with her history lesson, shoehorning in expressions that were coined during the period complete with clunky explanations. The novel is certainly an engaging way of providing a superb 1930s economic and political American history lesson and comes complete with some memorable moments of female bonding. An informative read and unmissable history lesson for those who have no knowledge of the era, but one that overall I found a little too schmaltzy for my tastes.

It was my first book by the author but won’t be the last, especially after reading this heartbreaking and beautiful written story.
I haven’t read many novels sets in early 1900, much more American ones, so many things that happened here are somehow new and interesting for me.
But, as a mother, I can relate to some of the moments that our heroine goes through and sacrificing everything for your children is the most important duty of a mother.
There are parts where I felt like stalling as there are somewhere maybe I needed more insight or details/answers.
Overall it’s a great historical novel that many readers will enjoy and I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Kristin Hannah is one of my favourite authors. Such a talent for gripping your heart and not letting it go.
Thank you for a fabulous read.

The Four Winds a story of survival, of grit and determination, of women and their relationships of resilience in the face of insurmountable odds. Set during dust bowl era Texas, this novel focuses on Elsa Martinelli and her daughter as they try to survive the complete destruction of life as they knew it.

A horrific amalgamation of disastrous weather, catastrophic agricultural practices and incompetent government bring farmers to the brink of ruin. It is against this backdrop that we meet Elsa, who despite a sheltered childhood, has grown into a strong and independent woman. When faced with the possibility of starvation and death, she makes a brave choice to take her kids to California in the hopes of a better life. However, just like the millions of migrants who came to Califonia in search of a job, Elsa and her kids find a harrowing existence of poverty, exploitation and starvation. But she also finds the courage to finally shed the shackles of self-imposed repression.

It is impeccably well researched, gut-wrenching and emotional. Despite the horrors these characters face, the novel shines a light on the indomitable human spirit, it's capacity to endure the worst and survive against all odds. But what stayed with me is how this novel echoes contemporary realities, of migrants being exploited, humans being treated like dirt, of men in power misusing their authority and influence, of a divided nation but also of people rising up from the depths of despair to fight for what is rightfully theirs, for basic human rights, for the right to be heard.

This is definitely not an easy read but it's powerful, riveting and a story for our times. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC

I couldn't. I gave this a few chapters, then started skimming, and then gave up.
I've never read Kristin Hannah before, and probably won't try again, but she seems a bit too maudlin for my taste.
People who really enjoy soap operas and Hallmark films would probably like this book.

My all time favourite book about the Great Depression is, of course, Grapes of Wrath. The Four Winds tackles the same era and despite being a very different story, it’s a graphic and compelling account. I haven’t read anything by this author before, but the writing is incredible. It’s powerful in that the characters seem so real. As do their experiences and I totally bought into their issues and journey. It’s not always a comfortable read because the hardships are genuine and heartbreaking, but that was the reality.

It’s a book which left me reflective and appreciative. Sometimes we think things are difficult, but in reality, we have so much and far better social support than was available to millions in the 1930s. This is a genuine slice of history and it’s a book that will stay with me.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

My heart. My poor, broken heart. Here I am sat, sighing every few seconds, digesting this latest read. A novel about the poverty in America during the Great Depression and the sheer helplessness of families being stuck in the never ending cycle of debt, poverty and working picking cotton for pennies just to take credit again and again.
This is Hannah's craft, researching a hugely important issue in history, and weaving it into a fictional novel in such a way that it is nothing but unforgettable. I have read The Nightingale many months ago, and I think of it constantly. I know this book will be the same.
The characters were wonderful, and I ached for them with every obstacle. This just made it more painful, knowing thousands of families lived this way for so long.
Simply breathtaking.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

I’ve found books always have a way of playing with your emotions, it’s been a while since one has left me crying like this did.

This book is about a place and time in history that I’m not familiar with, historical fiction.. the writing is so descriptive and beautiful, that you really feel transported back in time.

I read this book over a couple of days and because of that I was invested from the beginning to the end in Elsa’s journey.

Yes, it’s a sad book with lots of doom and gloom, but it also highlights what so many people went through.

I doubt anyone would be thinking of The Great Depression and dust storms as a positive part of their life.

Recommend it.

Wow, just wow. This is a book that really gets you in the feels.
I have to admit, I don't know a lot about American History, there's a few major political events that I've looked up but other than that I'm pretty oblivious. I had no clue about the events leading up to the depression in the 1930's and so I had no pre-conceived ideas as to what this would actually be about.
Holy shit, bleak doesn't cover it. Kristin Hannah does such an amazing job of painting a picture of what it was like to live through the drought and the dust storms you can actually feel yourself struggling to breathe.
Elsa is such a wonderful, complex character, she's not your usual leading lady. Her life is a struggle from the very beginning of the book and life doesn't really let up on her. But she's so easy to love, you really root for her, you want her to have the love that she deserves and the life that she deserves.
I really don't think that anything I write in a review will do this book justice. Kristin Hannah is truly one of the best writers on the market at the moment. In The Four Winds she has taken a bleak period of time and made it accessible to the masses, something that you are desperate to read more about, with a character that you are deeply invested in. This book is historical fiction writing at it's best.
Kristin Hannah pulls all the punches, her descriptions are so vivid you can really imagine what it was like to live with nothing. Reading this book will make you thankful for what you have, no matter how little you currently perceive that to be.
I read this shortly after reading Firefly Lane and the difference between Elsa and Cloud couldn't be more stark. Elsa shows us just what a mum is willing to do to ensure the safety of her children and to try and get the best life for them. This is a woman who, when pushed, will give up everything that she loves, if it means a better future for her children. I'm not usually one for posting quotes from books but there is the most wonderful quote about motherhood in here
"A warrior believes in an end she can't see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me."
5 stars just doesn't seem to be enough

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is a story of the Great Depression in America and the drought that caused the Dust Bowl in the late 1930’s to cause all the wheat farms to die and the fields to dry out without rain. It is the story of Elsa Martinelli, 1896- 1936 and her two children, Loreda and Ant, who travel across America looking for work and somewhere to live. Who end up at a camp picking cotton and living in a cabin on credit, knowing they will never be able to break even and then the wages are cut, and cut.
It is a very moving story told with sympathy and a realistic insight into those times of hardship, starvation and death. It shows the courage of one woman and her children who set out alone, having the husband desert them and leave in the night, never to be seen again. Who all three show courage and fortitude to survive and try to improve their lives.
A wonderful saga of a story of a time seeming long ago, when so many people were out of work and living hand to mouth brought to life by Kristin Hannah in The Four Winds.
Highly recommended.

Dalhart, 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 25 year old 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 Italian immigrant farmer 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 the 4 years of 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 to avoid poverty, starvation and despair and a tireless fight to keep her children, 12 year old Loreda and 7 year old Anthony, alive. Her husband, Rafe has become distant and developed a drinking problem and he eventually abandons his family to survive on their own.

Elsa reticently makes the bold decision to move to California in the hope that more opportunities will lead to a more promising future, leaving behind the land she loves. But her dreams of a more fulfilling life are shattered when she realises things are even worse in California. Can she find a way to survive and triumph over adversity? The Four Winds is one of the finest works of historical fiction I've read in years. Everything is so richly described and the characters, especially Elsa, will steal your heart and take you on a journey of heartbreak and hope, poverty and despair. A powerful and moving story that is written in effortlessly beautiful prose and a deeply prescient narrative, this is a compelling and captivating novel of sacrifice, survival, courage, love, resilience and the unbreakable bond between mother and daughter. It's vivid with a cast of vulnerable, flawed characters who become more and more real and alive as you keep turning the pages. Elsa is a strong and steely woman who encounters poverty, homelessness, migrant labour issues, bigotry, dust storms, floods and hunger riots and manages to keep going through it all which is so inspiring; you can't help but love her. I'd advise you to have tissues handy, though. Highly recommended.

“Time heals all wounds, people told her, underscoring its essential kindness. She knew in fact that some wounds deepened over time instead of lessened.”

The Four Winds is my first Kristin Hannah novel and it certainly won’t be the last. This book was powerfully transportive, insightful and poignant.

The story follows Elsa Martinelli, and as time goes on, her daughter as well, Loreda. Through both mother and daughter we go back to Texas 1934 and navigate the crisis’s of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression and their consequences.

”Poverty was a soul-crushing thing. A cave that tightened around you, its pinprick of light closing a little more at the end of each desperate, unchanged day.”

Hannah writes an immersive story as I felt transported to 1934 Texas. I saw the farmlands golden and prosperous. Equally I easily imagined the barren landscapes that transpire, and the plight ravaging both the land and the family. I felt the worries and stress over surviving their living circumstances and bare shelves. I easily imagined the migrant camps that held crowds and crowds of desperate souls. I had multiple lumps in my throat. I can only describe Hannah as a phenomenal writer who captured such striking imagery with evocative and easily readable prose.

However, there were scenes that were nearly word for word repetitive a couple of chapters after the first, which felt repetitive, rather than merely emphasising the plight of the Martinellis.

I found Elsa very relatable in her desire to find somewhere to belong, to give love and be loved in return. Elsa loves fiercely and the times force her to come out of her shell in ways she’d never imagine or choose, which was heartbreaking and tragic, but also in some ways marvellous. My chest swelled with such hope and eased with relief when Elsa and her family had respite. My heart ached when they did not.

”A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.”

The other Martinelli, Loreda, is in her adolescence so is driven in ways her more weathered mother isn’t. She was a whirlwind storm of emotions throughout; facing the harsh realities of life and enduring horrendous challenges that cost her childhood innocence. I felt she really developed across the book to come full circle.

I had questions by the end that weren’t answered. I understand my questions were perhaps not the main focus of the story, but they still feel unresolved all the same. Moreover I think the ending was predictable. This was disappointing on two fronts: that it was predictable and I also felt it was an unnecessary end when the story was already breathtaking.

Despite my issues I still loved this book. I really, really enjoyed it. My heart desperately wants to rate it 5 stars but my head says 4. I think it’s an incredible exploration of human will, family and American history. By the books end I was choked up and felt it was a privilege to read the Martinelli story, which Hannah makes clear in her author’s note, was her attempt of portraying what many people went through. I am genuinely eternally grateful for this tough yet rewarding read and won’t ever forget it. I’ve already preordered my hardback copy.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of readers take a good look at their lives when reading this. It certainly made me realise and appreciate what I have. And so I’ll end my review with one of the messages The Four Winds leaves us with: ”Hard times don’t last. Love does.”

Thank you kindly to the publishers and Netgalley UK for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I’m a big fan of Kristin Hannah’s other books, especially The Great Alone, and so I was excited to read another historical book by her. Even if I can’t speak for the historical accuracy you can tell the author has done her research. I came away learning a lot about how the Great Depression really affected people on the ground in America instead of just as an abstract concept. Brilliantly written and truly captivating, I was rooting for Elsa throughout,

(Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)

This is the most wonderful book that I have read in quite some time! It is a modern day 'The Grapes of Wrath' (Steinbeck). I was so invested in this family and their well being and loved the relationships between them.

Elsa, an unloved child, ill-treated by her own family, finds herself in an unfortunate situation which leads to a loveless marriage. Nothing that Elsa does is right and her husband becomes more and more distant. Elsa learns to make the best of what is around her and works hard on her new family's farm which earns her their respect, and later, their love. However, as the drought sets in and the dust bowl storms rampage, crops fail and Elsa's family begin to starve. The descriptions of their hardship are excruciating and truly shocking at times. At Elsa's son's health begins to fail she is forced to leave the hard-won sanctuary and travel to California on the promise of work and better times. Life goes from bad to worse and the family learn to value what they really need the most...

The relationships in this book a so realistic that it brought me to tears. I cannot speak highly enough of Elsa's tenacity and capacity to love and hope in the face of total adversity. I would give this more than 5 stars if I possibly could. I feel bereft to have finished the book, and the only light at the end of the tunnel is to discover that this wonderful author has already published many more books that I can now enjoy. A new author to me! Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book. It has been an absolute delight!

This is a beautifully written, heart-breaking book with such a life-affirming message of strength and perseverance.

We’re introduced to Elsa on the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, she’s living with her parents in 1920s Texas, at a time when women of her age are generally classed as being “on the shelf” and destined for a life of spinsterhood. Cursed with her parents' belief that she is weak as a result of childhood illness, her father mocks her when she shares her desire to further her education with dreams of becoming a teacher or even a writer. Shortly after this Elsa meets Raffaello “Rafe” Martinelli, an eighteen-year-old son of Italian immigrants. Shocked to discover she is pregnant, Rafe agrees to marry her and she quickly settles down to life on his family farm.
Life on the farm is tough but Elsa as her family grows with the birth of their daughter Loreda, followed by son Ant, so does her love for this new way of life. When the dust storms arrive, with endless drought, ruined crops, and threaten to claim the life of Ant, Elsa takes to brave decision to move her family east to California where claims of sunshine and prosperity paint an idyllic life. After a gruelling cross-country journey, they soon find these claims couldn’t be further from the truth. Branded as “Okies” they’re faced with pitiful wages, discrimination and, injustices.

The pain and endurance Elsa and her family suffer are described with such emotion in this wonderfully written book. The writings are littered with quotes that Elsa has picked up throughout life, my favourite being from her grandfather –

“Don’t worry about dying, Elsa, worry about not living. Be Brave”

What stood out for me in this book was the strength of endurance that Elsa had, the hardships she overcame and the lengths she would go to in protecting her children. She certainly was brave.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the review copy.

Page-turning epic about a family’s changing (mostly downwards) fortunes during the Great Depression. Along with a really strong sense of time and place, there’s lots of melodrama, the story moves at a great pace, and it has a main character I really felt for. A completely absorbing read.