The Four Winds

Author: Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2021
Pages: 464
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis:

Texas, 1921. A time of abudance. 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.

Review: I first took an interest in the Dust Bowl when I read Timothy Egan's book, The Worst Hard Time. Kristin Hannah's last few books have been excellent so I was excited to see she had one set during this time period. This did not disappoint.

One of my friends commented that nothing good happens at all, ever in the book, and while that's true, there is a lot going on in this novel. Nobody writes relationships better than Hannah, and this is a believable and engrossing human experience during what was truly an awful and seemingly never-ending time of poverty in the United States.

Other Kristin Hannah Novels
Angel Falls
Summer Island
The Great Alone
The Enchantment
The Nightingale
The Women
True Colors