Winter Garden
Ratings39
Average rating4
From the author of acclaimed national bestseller Firefly Lanecomes a haunting, heartbreakingly beautiful novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between past and present.
Sometimes when you open the door to your mother’s past, you find your own future…
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, these two estranged women will find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. On his deathbed, their father extracts one last promise from the women in his life.
It begins with a story that is unlike anything the sisters have heard before—a captivating, mysterious love story that spans sixty-five years and moves from frozen, war torn Leningrad to modern-day Alaska. The vividly imagined tale brings these three women together in a way that none could have expected. Meredith and Nina will finally learn the secret of their mother’s past and uncover a truth so terrible it will shake the foundation of their family and change who they think they are.
Every once in a while a writer comes along who navigates the complex and layered landscape of the human heart. For this generation, it’s Kristin Hannah. Mesmerizing from the first page to the last, Winter Garden is an evocative, lyrically-written novel that will long be remembered.
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Wow, Kristin Hannah has done it again for me. I thought no novel could affect me the way The Nightingale did, but I was wrong. This book is so well-crafted and utterly heart-wrenching. The story line went in a direction I did not anticipate at the start of the novel, in a good way. I thought the plot would be more about the two sisters, Meredith and Nina, who have been damaged by their mother's lack of affection. When they lose their beloved father, they are brought together to fulfill his dying wish for them to hear their mother's Russian fairy tale, which turns into an epic story of their mother's life in Russia during the reign of Joseph Stalin and World War II. Through the telling of Anya's story, the three women learn who each of them really is and who they are as a family.
I absolutely loved this book. Once I got to the middle of the book, I could not put it down. Anya's story of her years in Russia kept me captivated. For the last 100 pages, I was emotionally invested in the outcome. I will admit a few tears were shed during this reading. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a family saga mixed with engaging historical fiction. Five star read!
I enjoyed this story and Kristin Hannah never disappoints. It's about 2 sisters who have a rocky relationship with their mother, who is Russian, as she has always been very aloof and frosty with them, although they never understood why. When their father is ill, he makes them promise that they will learn more about their mother and when he passes away they feel they have to keep that promise.
The characters are well developed and the plot is fascinating, my only issue with it is that it seemed to take a long time to get to the “meat” of the story. Once you do, however, it was riveting and heartbreaking.
Emocionante Comovente ApaixonanteUma história de amor, sobrevivência, superação, relacionamentos, separações e reencontros.Mais uma vez arrebatada com a força e beleza das palavras de [a:Kristin Hannah 54493 Kristin Hannah https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1417050721p2/54493.jpg].Tal como em [b:O Rouxinol 27226157 O Rouxinol Kristin Hannah https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1445114726s/27226157.jpg 41125521], é uma história de mulheres ligadas pelos laços de família. A história alterna entre o presente (Washington, USA) e o passado (Leningrado / São Petersburgo, Rússia). O regime de Stalin, o cerco a Leningrado, a guerra, a fome, as doenças e a morte são apresentados através de uma história dentro da história, um conto de fadas. As personagens femininas são intensas e a sua força vai crescendo ao longo da narrativa.Quem leu e gostou d'O Rouxinol, com certeza, gostará deste.Para os mais sensíveis, aconselho lá para o final do livro, terem uma caixinha de lenços de papel por perto.
