The Printed Page

Title: Winter Garden
Author/website(s): Kristin Hannah
391 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: February ’10
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Review book or pleasure reading: Review book
New-to-me author: No; favorite/auto-buy author
Would I recommend this book: Undecided
Would I read more from this author: Yes
Journal notes: As much as I enjoyed Firefly Lane and True Colors I was disappointed by her newest Winter Garden. Just as Meredith and Nina found their mother cold and remote that how’s the storytelling felt to me. I thought it was missing the usual heart and soul Ms. Hannah puts into her stories. Reading this particular KH novel took a lot of patience for me. I almost DNF’d it.

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, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes 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, more than five decades ago. 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.

Winter Garden was provided to me by Nicole at Authors on the Web. I was not paid and this book is being passed along to the another book blogger through Read It Forward )