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Winter Garden: A moving and absorbing historical fiction from the bestselling author of The Four Winds Kindle Edition
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From the Number One bestselling author of The Four Winds and The Nightingale. Kristin Hannah's Winter Garden is a haunting and compelling novel illuminating the intricacy of mother-daughter bonds and the enduring links between past and present.
‘A tearjerker . . . a journey as lovely and haunting as a snow filled winter’s night’ – People
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her family and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and travelled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But these two estranged women come together at their father’s deathbed standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, to hear the one last promise he extracts from the women in his life.
It begins with a story like no other. A captivating, mysterious love story that spans sixty-five years and moves from war torn Leningrad in the 1940s to modern-day Alaska. The three women are brought together by a story so unexpected and extraordinary that when Meredith and Nina finally learn the secret of their mother’s past and uncover a truth so terrible, it will shake the very foundation of the family and who they think they are.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPan
- Publication dateNovember 20, 2014
- Reading age18 years and up
- File size2637 KB
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One
2000Was this what forty looked like? Really? In the past year Meredith had gone from Miss to Ma’am. Just like that, with no transition. Even worse, her skin had begun to lose its elasticity. There were tiny pleats in places that used to be smooth. Her neck was fuller, there was no doubt about it. She hadn’t gone gray yet; that was the one saving grace. Her chestnut-colored hair, cut in a no-nonsense shoulder-length bob, was still full and shiny. But her eyes gave her away. She looked tired. And not only at six in the morning.She turned away from the mirror and stripped out of her old T-shirt and into a pair of black sweats, anklet socks, and a long-sleeved black shirt. Pulling her hair into a stumpy ponytail, she left the bathroom and walked into her darkened bedroom, where the soft strains of her husband’s snoring made her almost want to crawl back into bed. In the old days, she would have done just that, would have snuggled up against him.Leaving the room, she clicked the door shut behind her and headed down the hallway toward the stairs.In the pale glow of a pair of long-outdated night-lights, she passed the closed doors of her children’s bedrooms. Not that they were children anymore. Jillian was nineteen now, a sophomore at UCLA who dreamed of being a doctor, and Maddy—Meredith’s baby—was eighteen and a freshman at Vanderbilt. Without them, this house—and Meredith’s life—felt emptier and quieter than she’d expected. For nearly twenty years, she had devoted herself to being the kind of mother she hadn’t had, and it had worked. She and her daughters had become the best of friends. Their absence left her feeling adrift , a little purposeless. She knew it was silly. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have plenty to do. She just missed the girls; that was all.She kept moving. Lately that seemed to be the best way to handle things.Downstairs, she stopped in the living room just long enough to plug in the Christmas tree lights. In the mudroom, the dogs leaped up at her, yapping and wagging their tails.“Luke, Leia, no jumping,” she scolded the huskies, scratching their ears as she led them to the back door. When she opened it, cold air rushed in. Snow had fallen again last night, and though it was still dark on this mid-December morning, she could make out the pale pearlescence of road and field. Her breath turned into vapory plumes.By the time they were all outside and on their way, it was 6:10 and the sky was a deep purplish gray.Right on time.Meredith ran slowly at first, acclimating herself to the cold. As she did every weekday morning, she ran along the gravel road that led from her house, down past her parents’ house, and out to the old single-lane road that ended about a mile up the hill. From there, she followed the loop out to the golf course and back. Four miles exactly. It was a routine she rarely missed; she had no choice, really. Everything about Meredith was big by nature. She was tall, with broad shoulders, curvy hips, and big feet. Even her features seemed just a little too much for her pale, oval face—she had a big Julia Roberts– type mouth, huge brown eyes, full eyebrows, and thick hair. Only constant exercise, a vigilant diet, good hair products, and an industrial-sized pair of tweezers could keep her looking good.As she turned back onto her road, the rising sun illuminated the mountains, turned their snowcapped peaks lavender and pink.On either side of her, thousands of bare, spindly apple trees showed through the snow like brown stitches on white fabric. This fertile cleft of land had belonged to their family for fifty years, and there, in the center of it all, tall and proud, was the home in which she’d grown up. Belye Nochi. Even in the half-light it looked ridiculously out of place and ostentatious.Meredith kept running up the hill, faster and faster, until she could barely breathe and there was a stitch in her side.She came to a stop at her own front porch as the valley filled with bright golden light. She fed the dogs and then hurried upstairs. She was just going into the bathroom as Jeff was coming out. Wearing only a towel, with his graying blond hair still dripping wet, he turned sideways to let her pass, and she did the same. Neither one of them spoke.By 7:20, she was drying her hair, and by 7:30—right on time—she was dressed for work in a pair of black jeans and a fitted green blouse. A little eyeliner, some blush and mascara, a coat of lipstick, and she was ready to go.Downstairs, she found Jeff at the kitchen table, sitting in his regular chair, reading The New York Times. The dogs were asleep at his feet.She went to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. “You need a refill?”“I’m good,” he said without looking up.Meredith stirred soy milk into her coffee, watching the color change. It occurred to her that she and Jeff only talked at a distance lately, like strangers—or disillusioned partners—and only about work or the kids. She tried idly to remember the last time they’d made love, and couldn’t.Maybe that was normal. Certainly it was. When you’d been married as long as they had, there were bound to be quiet times. Still, it saddened her sometimes to remember how passionate they used to be. She’d been fourteen on their first date (they’d gone to see Young Frankenstein; it was still one of their favorites), and to be honest, that was the last time she’d ever really looked at another guy. It was strange when she thought about that now; she didn’t consider herself a romantic woman, but she’d fallen in love practically at first sight. He’d been a part of her for as long as she could remember.They’d married early—too early, really—and she’d followed him to college in Seattle, working nights and weekends in smoky bars to pay tuition. She’d been happy in their cramped, tiny U District apartment. Then, when they were seniors, she’d gotten pregnant. It had terrified her at first. She’d worried that she was like her mother, and that parenthood wouldn’t be a good thing. But she discovered, to her profound relief, that she was the complete opposite of her own mother. Perhaps her youth had helped in that. God knew Mom had not been young when Meredith was born.Jeff shook his head. It was a minute gesture, barely even a movement, but she saw it. She had always been attuned to him, and lately their mutual disappointments seemed to create sound, like a high-pitched whistle that only she could hear.“What?” she said.“Nothing.”“You didn’t shake your head over nothing. What’s the matter?”“I just asked you something.”“I didn’t hear you. Ask me again.”“It doesn’t matter.”“Fine.” She took her coffee and headed toward the dining room.It was something she’d done a hundred times, and yet just then, as she passed under the old-fashioned ceiling light with its useless bit of plastic mistletoe, her view changed.She saw herself as if from a distance: a forty-year-old woman, holding a cup of coffee, looking at two empty places at the table, and at the husband who was still here, and for a split second she wondered what other life that woman could have lived. What if she hadn’t come home to run the orchard and raise her children? What if she hadn’t gotten married so young? What kind of woman could she have become?And then it was gone like a soap bubble, and she was back where she belonged.“Will you be home for dinner?”“Aren’t I always?”“Seven o’clock,” she said.“By all means,” he said, turning the page. “Let’s set a time.”Meredith was at her desk by eight o’clock. As usual, she was the first to arrive and went about the cubicle-divided space on the ware house’s second floor flipping on lights. She passed by her dad’s office—empty now—pausing only long enough to glance at the plaques by his door. Thirteen times he’d been voted Grower of the Year and his advice was still sought out by competitors on a regular basis. It didn’t matter that he only occasionally came into the office, or that he’d been semi-retired for ten years. He was still the face of the Belye Nochi orchard, the man who had pioneered Golden Delicious apples in the early sixties, Granny Smiths in the seventies, and championed the Braeburn and Fuji in the nineties. His designs for cold storage had revolutionized the business and helped make it possible to export the very best apples to world markets.She had had a part to play in the company’s growth and success, to be sure. Under her leadership, the cold storage ware house had been expanded and a big part of their business was now storing fruit for other growers. She’d turned the old roadside apple stand into a gift shop that sold hundreds of locally made craft items, specialty foods, and Belye Nochi memorabilia. At this time of year—the holidays—when train-loads of tourists arrived in Leavenworth for the world-famous tree-lighting ceremony, more than a few found their way to the gift shop.The first thing she did was pick up the phone to call her youngest daughter. It was just past ten in Tennessee.“Hello?” Maddy grumbled.“Good morning,” Meredith said brightly. “It sounds like someone slept in.”“Oh. Mom. Hi. I was up late last night. Studying.”“Madison Elizabeth,” was all Meredith had to say to make her point.Maddy sighed. “Okay. So it was a Lambda Chi party.”“I know how fun it all is, and how much you want to experience every moment of college, but your first final is next week. Tuesday morning, right?”“Right.”“You have to learn to balance schoolwork and fun. So get your lily-white ass out of bed and get to class. It’s a life skill—partying all night and still getting up on time.”“The world won’t end if I miss one Spanish class...
From the Back Cover
Meredith and Nina 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 father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort whatsoever to her daughters.
As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya often told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time -- and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya's life in war-torn Leningrad. Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother's life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B00LB89VF0
- Publisher : Pan; Main Market Ed. edition (November 20, 2014)
- Publication date : November 20, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 2637 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 408 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #358,960 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,736 in Military Historical Fiction
- #1,884 in Historical Literary Fiction
- #2,352 in War Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels. Her newest novel, The Women, about the nurses who served in the Vietnam war, will be released on February 6, 2024.
The Four Winds was published in February of 2021 and immediately hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Indie bookstore's bestseller lists. Additionally, it was selected as a book club pick by the both Today Show and The Book Of the Month club, which named it the best book of 2021.
In 2018, The Great Alone became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and was named the Best Historical Novel of the Year by Goodreads.
In 2015, The Nightingale became an international blockbuster and was Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People's Choice award for best fiction in the same year. It was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week.
The Nightingale is currently in pre-production at Tri Star. Firefly Lane, her beloved novel about two best friends, was the #1 Netflix series around the world, in the week it came out. The popular tv show stars Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke.
A former attorney, Kristin lives in the Pacific Northwest.
www.kristinhannah.com
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The story unfolds at its own pace, and I found a deep sense of satisfaction in the way it took its time to develop. What added that extra layer of richness to the story was that it's told from the perspectives of two daughters and their mother. This unique narrative style allowed me to connect with the characters and made me feel like I was with them on their emotional journeys.
The ending of this book is something else entirely. It's a breathtaking display of eloquence and beauty that had me on the verge of tears. Kristin Hannah's storytelling talent shines the brightest in those final moments, and the ending leaves an everlasting mark on your heart.
Top reviews from other countries
I found this book so disappointing, especially after reading ‘The Nightingale’ by the same author, which I just loved. The first half of the book was painful to read with long, drawn out descriptions that were never ending. The characters were watery and irritating. The author spent so much time ‘telling us’ how the characters felt instead of allowing us to infer for ourselves and over emphasised things that should be subtle and nuanced; ‘Meridith dared to reach out and cover her mother’s cold, cold hand with her own, but she couldn’t find any words to go along with the intimate act.’ The constant description of the mother’s blue eyes was cringeworthy and the writing style was amateur; ‘only then, when their gazes really met, did Meridith see the confusion in those electric-blue eyes.’ I entered ‘blue eyes’ into the search on my kindle and it came up in the prologue, chapter 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, 17,19,21,23 and 25.I know repetition is for effect but the effect here was only frustration and irritation at the constant reference; ‘those eerie blue eyes’, ‘those arctic blue eyes’, ‘those brilliant blue eyes’, ‘those amazing blue eyes’, ‘with intense blue eyes’. Oh my God, we get it!
By chapter five I was struggling to continue but pushed on through (effects of a book club). The story was predictable and it was easy to tell where the 'fairytales' were heading and by chapter 12 the plot hadn’t been furthered much other than Nina had come home and taken her mother from the home. It was a chore to read and thank heavens that final throw of passion signalled goodbye to Danny, our Irish leprechaun. The mother was cutting herself and tearing wallpaper off the walls to eat, around 60 years after the trauma, yet there was no sign of mental illness? Also, this behaviour suddenly stops and she is ‘not crazy’? The plot had so many holes in it, how did they miraculously end up finding the daughter without any search, after all those years?
All that being said, the second half of the book redeemed it somewhat. However, it was like reading a completely different story. The story became engaging, at least more than the first half, but only because of the historical context and the fact that you know these things really happened. The fact that all this happened to their mother, yet their father never thought to tell them before now, that their mother was a survivor of war and that they once had siblings, was again indigestible. I mean seriously, crying on his deathbed ‘Make her tell you the story of the peasant girl and the prince’ about something so important, and then leaving it to chance. The mother was clearly suffering from depression and ptsd, I think it would’ve been in the daughters’ best interest to be privy to the reasons why. I’m rolling my eyes again in disbelief. I could go on and on but it would be as boring as the majority of this book. Sorry guys, this one is a definite thumbs down from me.
If you want to read a really good book about Leningrad, read Siege by Helen Dunmore