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Winter Garden: Enhanced Special Edition |  | Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Rating:  123 reviews
Sales Rank: 809
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B003672JHG
Publication Date: January 28, 2010
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Product Description
Included in this Special Edition eBook of Kristin Hannah’s Winter Garden are a number of exciting features, including: * The full text of the book
* An exclusive conversation with the author
* A special essay written by the author describing her research process for the book
* Delicious recipes for making Russian food favorites in your kitchen at home
* And more
Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother? From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past 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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 123
 Could this book be any more excrutiating? September 4, 2010
L. Sadler (Bahama, NC)
I picked up this book on CD to listen to on a long drive over the Labor Day weekend. By the end of the third CD, I was yelling at the author to get on with it. How many times did she have to explain in excruciating detail that the mother is cold and emotionally uninvolved with her two daughters? And the daughters call this Ice Queen "mom?" As autocratic as the "mom" is, that's too warm a term and I winced at the incongruity. I got the fact that Meredith is the uber (and how many times does the author use that word? Too many!) caretaker and Nina is the irresponsible runaway by the end of the first CD. After 3 CDS, I was actually in a bad mood; however, I already knew the "fairy tales" were the key to the story and hoped the author would finally get into the meat of the story. I decided to listen to one more CD just in case the author could possibly move the story along. Big mistake. I gave up and started listening to another book that I now wish I had spent my drive listening to. I am reading the reviews on this site to see if I have wasted four hours of my life or I should slog through the rest of this story. So far, not convinced.
 Great Book September 3, 2010
ErinGD
Winter Garden was an easy read and a wonderful story. I most like the parts that were flashback to the mother's life in Russia but overall it was a great book and I would definitely recommend it if you like happy endings.
 Moving August 31, 2010
Suelee (New England)
Yes, the book starts slow...it could use a bit of editing to condense some of the first half. But stick with it, because the constant referring to the "fairy tale" DOES pay off!! Turns out the "fairy tale" really is an amazing story ~ truly! Such a moving, important book! Tears, heartache and survival...GREAT STORY. Keep reading all the way through!
Moved... August 30, 2010
Laci Norman
I just finished reading the "Winter Garden" this evening, and am still affected by it. Being an avid reader, I go through books like some go through, oh I don't know, food in their refridgerator. Since I read so much, it takes a strong writer to create an imprint in my mind. Kristin Hannah first did so with her book "Firefly Lane".
Not wanting to repeat too much of the story as others have done, I will say just a little. The connection between the two daughters and their cold distant mother is one of those that intrigued me and made me immediately ask, why? There is something deeper there.
As the story enfolds I was drawn deeper into the distant relationship. As the fairy tale took its twist, while I wasn't surprised, i was deeply moved by the seriousness and the effect it had. It wrapped its way around heart and pulled at my heartstrings.
I highly recommend this to anyone, but close to the end, keep a tissue box handy.
Tundra Trek to Sunshine August 29, 2010
BeatleBangs1964 (United States)
"Mother, you had me, but I didn't have you.
I wanted you but you didn't want me,
So I got to tell you, Goodbye, goodbye." -- John Lennon, 1970
Kristin Hannah, a gifted chick lit author (and I LOVE chick lit) has done it again. She has written a compelling story, set in Washington State and created a cast of memorable and plausible characters. In short, Kristin Hannah is a genius. It's as simple as that.
The story opens in 2001, when sisters Nina, (b. 1963) and Meredith (b. 1960) are facing major life changes. Nina, a photojournalist is in Africa doing a photo shoot while Meredith remains near the home she grew up. She, her husband Jeff and two daughters Jillian, 19 and in med school and Maddie, 17 all pitch in to help Meredith's parents. Her father was at the end of his life when the story opens and the sisters have a poor relationship with their mother. Meredith traces the turning point in their bad relationship to an incident involving a play she and Nina put on in 1972 when they were 12 and 9 respectively. At that point, Meredith vows that she will never listen to another fairy tale their mother tells EVER again.
"Children, don't do what I have done, I couldn't walk and I tried to run.
So I got to tell you, Goodbye, goodbye. Mama don't go, Daddy come home." -- John Lennon, 1970 from "Mother"
This story is far deeper than the snow, which is used metaphorically as well as realistically throughout the story. Nina and Meredith's mother is from Russia and the wonderful references to Russian food and culture make for a culturally sharing experience.
The sisters' father eventually dies, but after he extracts a promise from his daughters to get their mother to tell one particular story in toto. They promise, but keeping it is what makes up for a large part of the story. They have their work cut out for them.
Meredith is the efficient, take charge personality, a quality that was probably inculcated in her from an early age as being the older sister. Nina, having written getting love from their mother as a lost cause embarks upon a successful career that requires her to travel for extensive periods of time. She has a loving boyfriend who is good to her and good for her, as Meredith's husband Jeff is a good man.
The sisters travel in different orbits - Meredith as trying to do everything she can for her widowed mother, even making some very difficult decisions. Nina, globe-trotting and rising in her career only to hit some rough spots when their father died returns to the family homestead to make equally difficult, yet very different decisions.
Meredith and Nina examine their approaches to adult relationships and both wonder why their father Evan married their mother Anya. They both had warm, loving relationships with their father (the apple orchard is a symbol of fruitful love as they have an apple orchard on the family property) and the snow is a metaphor for their mother, whom the girls understandably feel is cold and distant as an Arctic tundra. Her blue eyes, unlike those of a Siberian husky, radiate coldness as opposed to a loving, playful side. Anya is very much like an Arctic tundra.
Both sisters have more in common than they realized. Meredith's husband feels rebuffed by Meredith and I just loved it when he challenged her by saying he was on her "to do list" because she appeared to approach everything in life as a challenge to be checked off. Nina, whose boyfriend Danny is a very loving man wants her to make a commitment to him, yet she teeters on the precipice of doing just that.
knows why Evan married Anya, nor why Anya seems to hate them.
The girls' father knows a very different Anya and a story that is far deeper and one that travels much futher than either daughter can imagine. A loving, tolerant man, Evan understands Anya and spent his life trying to encourage the girls to do likewise, depsite her aloof demeanor. The promise he extracts from his daughters does change the world and the tundra starts to thaw....
"Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting.
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear.
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all righ, it's all right." -- George Harrison, 1969
Anya's story is the foundation on which the story eventually rests. Without giving anything away, let's just say this novel is one that is well worth the trek through the tundra and well worth every page. The story the girls finally hear has a profoundly meteoric impact on their lives and their view of the world. It closes with an epilogue of the characters in 2010, which leaves readers with a sense of fullness and satisfaction. John Lennon's classic "Mother" and also the George Harrison classic "Here Comes the Sun" underscore this book.
This is truly an outstanding novel about relationships and how secrets divide and are usually uncovered over time. What makes this book special is the development of the characters; their compelling story and the writing itself. I highly recommend this book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 123
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