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Can I recommend you a book? Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

27 replies

AgentPidge · 09/06/2026 10:59

It's set in the 1920s and '30s in the US dustbowl and is a sort of family saga. It is an awesome book.
It was a book club choice, and I wasn't thrilled, because a) I've read something before by her and didn't like it much (something about women pilots in Afghanistan), and b) I'm not interested in American novels as a rule.
But I found it un-putdownable. The writing is very skilful. Its style is spare - no word is wasted. It touches on man-made climate change, migrants (unwanted in the place they migrate to), the workers' rights movement, and above all, family relationships. It made me re-think my relationship with my mother and made me cry (twice!). It sounds like a misery-fest but it isn't totally - lots of unexpected twists and is ultimately uplifting, and I learnt loads. I'm glad I got it in hardback (from the library) because it is long!

OP posts:
SkinnyLatteExtraHotPlease · 09/06/2026 16:11

Agreed, loved it .... I think her previous Book you mentioned is The Women? It's about Army Nurses in Vietnam....

Try The Nightingale - loved that too!

FallenNight · 09/06/2026 11:30

I have this on my TBR pile. I have found Kristen Hannah a brilliant writer. Years and years ago I read her book on Mystic Lake it was the first book that really made me cry. I recommended it to everyone. More recently I enjoyed The Women. I think she writes really well, conveys emotion, and that her story telling has matured. I am sure if I read Mystic again it would seem overly emotional and saccharine as it appealed to me as a teen. But the newer novels are brilliant in my opinion.

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