Four Winds

A Novel

320 pages

English language

Published Sept. 6, 2021 by St. Martin's Press.

ISBN:
978-1-250-17862-6
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

2 stars (1 review)

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 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 …

4 editions

Her editor should have stood firm.

2 stars

Kristin Hannah: I've got a great idea for my next book. It’s a story about a family who leaves the Dust Bowl during the Depression and travels to California where they face hardships and fight against prejudice.

Editor: Um, isn't that just like John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath?

Kristin Hannah: Yes, but my version will be different in several small ways and I won't even mention Steinbeck in the Acknowledgments!

Editor: Well, it's not quite plagiarism, I suppose, and I'm sure it will sell, so let's go for it.