I am always moved by her stories and Winter Garden is no exception.

She has an ability to take an event or an issue and present it with a clarity of purpose that focuses largely on human connection. After four novels, I am definitely in the ‘really love her’ camp. She’s an author though who seems to have only two types of readers: those who really hate her (yet still keep reading her books if only for the fact that they then seem to get great enjoyment out of picking them apart on Goodreads) and those who really love her. I first came to Kristin Hannah’s work with The Nightingale and over the last eighteen months, I’ve collected her backlist and been slowly making my way through it, loving her more with each novel. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. 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. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard the other followed a dream and travelled the world to become a famous photojournalist. Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be.

Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother?įrom the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colours comes a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past.

Kristin hannah the great alone summary