Tag: Kristin Hannah

Book Review: Home Front by Kristin Hannah

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Setting is Washington State in April of 2005. The book starts out with Jolene Zarkades and it is her 41st birthday. The backdrop is the Olympic Mountains and Liberty Bay. She has two girls, five year old Lulu and twelve year old Betsy and husband, Michael who is an attorney. Jolene enjoys running in the mornings, is a very organized person for her family and is a helicopter pilot for The Guard. She enlisted in the army when she was 18 years old and had qualified to flight school helicopter-pilot training.

She had a mother and father who drank and fought and eventually died when she was 17 years old. She did not know what she wanted to do after graduation and decided to enlist in the army. She met her best friend Tami when she was 18 and their love for flying brought them together and they had a strong, bonded friendship. They lived next to each other, got pregnant at the same time with their first child and they went from the army to the Guard when marriage and motherhood made active duty difficult. Twice a week they would go together to practice flying the Black Hawk helicopter, each taking turns at the helm.

Earlier in the morning, when she had gotten back from her run she was getting the girls ready for school and asked where their dad was, he already left. Since it was her birthday it was disappointing that he hadn’t stuck around to at least wish her happy birthday, oh well he probably has something special planned for tonight. She always likes his strong work ethic and seems to make excuses for him.

She deals with 12 year old Betsy’s trying to fit in with the cool crowd and not thinking that her mom is neat, like many twelve year olds. She has a wonderful mother in law who owns a garden store and is very helpful. Michael is in practice with his father but he passed away unexpectedly and is having a hard time dealing with it.

Jolene and Michael speak later in the day and apologized for forgetting her birthday and she said it’s fine as long as we are together. He said he would be home by eight and she said they could have a quiet meal together. He didn’t get home until midnight.

He was having thoughts about what is ahead, what his life could have been if a different path had been taken. Things were becoming rocky at home. Michael has never looked upon the Guard as important, something she really loved. Her daughter doesn’t want her to come to school in her flight uniform. She has asked Michael to come to a birthday party that the group is having for her and he doesn’t want to because they are “her” friends and he has nothing in common with them. Eventually as Michael thinks about his life, he decides that he needs to tell Jolene that he doesn’t love her anymore.

Michael is also taking on a case where a 25 year old murdered his wife. His wife that he adored and they were planning on starting a family. This young man was a model person, had never gotten in trouble and everyone loved him. He had been in Iraq though.

Jolene and Tami got the calls that they were being deployed. She had to break it to the girls, to Michael and her mother in law. Most met the information with disdain. Jolene spent the next weeks preparing the family to take care of themselves. Making a notebook with all the information that she could think of down to what meal to prepare for what day. Her heart is broken over her broken marriage but her sense of duty is strong and she has to do this.

The book goes on and tells the story of what goes on in Iraq and describes what the days are like. She tries to not let them know how bad it is and always tells them that she is not in the fighting, but she is.

The coming of Michael preparing and researching his upcoming court case makes him realize so much. He also has to be there for his girls which took him awhile to realize and to get it together. Then, a horrible accident happened during a flight in Iraq. He and Jolene had limited contact while she was over there and he never told her anything before she left. He was very selfish and wasn’t proud of her and didn’t try to understand. Her problem was that she didn’t depend on him and always was controlling. Both were at fault and had to learn hard lessons.

I whole heartedly recommend this book. It helps the reader understand what being in a war is like, getting injured and the long road to recovery along with the family side of it too.

At the End of the Year Book Reviews

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I am catching up on the books I have read and not reviewed to start the new year fresh. I downloaded the library app so I can read in bed before I go to sleep. I take a muscle relaxer because I sleep on my back all night since I had a back fusion. It takes approximately 15 minutes before I start getting sleepy and having that app has been great. I have read my favorite author, Kristen Hannah four of her books in a short period of time. One of my problems is when I am into a book I have to read it to the end. So I am still into it when I wake up the next day. I don’t get much done until I finish it.

Angel Falls, released June of 2010, most of Kristin Hannahs books are set in the Pacific Northwest like this one. Mikaela Campbell is married to a doctor, Liam Campbell. She met him when she took her child from a previous relationship to his office for an illness. She had moved to the small town recently and the doctor was very smitten with Mikaela. They ended up getting married and lived in the country on a horse farm. As the children grew she was very involved in the school and was loved.

One morning she was in the barn and one of the horses got frightened and knocked her out. She was taken to the hospital and was in a coma. Her husband was told that she would not wake up but he would not give up. He would go every day and talk with her, play her favorite music, tell her stories, talk about the past and tell her about the kids. He was just trying to figure out a way to get her to come back to them.

He decided to go through her closet and found clothing that she had kept but hadn’t worn. He also found a bag that contained a large diamond engagement ring and a photo of Mikaela and a movie star, Julian True. She would not talk about her life before she came to Angel Falls and this was a clue to it.

After much soul-searching Liam hatched a plan to contact Julian True, someone from her past. Mikaela’s mother also was asked about Julian and she did not want to bring him back into their lives. Will Julian be the one that can help bring Mikaela back? She was just deep in her coma and there was nothing wrong with her brain. Please read it, another good book by Kristen Hannah.

On Mystic Lake, Released December 2007 This book starts out with Annie Colwater preparing to send her daughter abroad for school for a semester. She and her husband take the daughter to the airport. On the way home the husband tells Annie that he is leaving her for a younger woman and that he is in love with her.

Annie Colwater is left in a large home, by herself, a home that has her touch everywhere because she is the one that had the house built. Her husband is a successful businessman so they could have this kind of home overlooking the water.

She had given the daughter and the husband everything of her. She was totally blindsided by this as she had hoped that they could travel since the daughter will be gone. She is lonely and afraid and decided to go to Mystic, a small town in Washington State where she grew up and her father lives.

Annie slowly starts meeting up with old friends from high school. Friends that she had not kept up with but should have tried. She was shocked when she found out that her very best friend had died. When she tried to find out how she died everyone skirted the issue. Her friend had married the boyfriend that both girls loved. He became a policeman in the city. She finally went to visit him and found that he had a six year old daughter who quit talking when her mother passed away.

So when you read on you find out how the best friend died, how the little girl started talking and how the policeman overcame his drinking problem.

This was an outstanding read.

Winter Garden Released February 2010, I like it when Kristin Hannah’s books have a lot of historical basis. It took me awhile into the book to get the meaning of the title and later I had an Ah Ha moment.

There are two sisters, Meredith and Nina that come together to help when their father becomes ill. One is a famous photographer and the other runs the family apple orchard business. They have a mother, Anya who is cold and disapproving all the time. When they were younger their mother would tell bits and pieces of a Russian fairy tale. When the father was dying he asked for a promise to get the mother to tell the fairy tale all the way through.

That is when they take their mother to Russia and they learn about what their mother had to endure in Leningrad during the war.

I really had no idea about Russia during this time and the history was interesting. It also has a surprise ending.

True Colors Released April 2010. There is a father in this book who is a disapproving man and cares much about the family reputation and pines after his wife who passed away. There are three adult daughters who became very good friends One, Winona, is an excellent lawyer, but is overweight and would love to have her father’s approval.

Aurora is the middle sister who is the peacemaker and trys to keep everyone happy. She has a hidden pain.

Vivi Ann is the beauty, the dreamer, and is adored by everyone she meets. Vivi Ann lives on the horse ranch that has been in the family for three generations. It is large and they always need help. The man they had hired up and left one day so they advertised for some help. A stranger applied for the job and turned everything upside down.

To read on you will find out more about the stranger, who committed a crime and went to prison, whose loyalties will be tested.

Enjoy!

This book was inspired by a first book titled Dewey, by Vicky Myron. Dewey was a kitten that someone placed in a book return one January 18, 1988 at the Spencer public library in Iowa. As you can imagine it was a very cold day. That cat became very popular and if you didn’t know about Dewey or as his complete name is: Dewey Readmore Books you can learn about him within these pages.

So many people wrote to the library and told them about their cat stories that the author picked nine of them – get it? Nine Lives……to write this book. Cats that have helped people through tough times, illness, divorce, parents dying, children dying. I can’t go through every story, but I had to have my tissue with me. If you are a cat lover as I am, I suggest you read both books. They’re amazing.

Book Review: Wild by Kristin Hannah

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This is my fourth and last book for January. It was such a good book, I could not put it down and it caught my attention from the first page. So here goes the review and I hope you decide to read it too.

The players:

Julia Cates – A psychiatrist in Los Angeles

The Zuniga’s – parents of a child who took a gun to school, shot and killed 4 classmates, Julia Cates was the psychiatrist of the child.

Girl – lives in the Olympic National Forest in a cave with wolves.

Ellen Barton – the Police Chief in Rain Valley, Washington

Peanut, Cal and Earl – Both work for Ellen Barton

Dr. Max Cerrasin – Doctor in Rain Valley

The towns people of Rain Valley

Setting: Los Angeles, Rain Valley and the Olympic National Forest

The first page of the book has Julie Cates driving to courthouse in Los Angeles. She had been named a defendant in a lawsuit. One of her patients took a gun to school and killed four other young adults. It had been covered for a year by the reporters and today is when the judge will determine is Julia Cates should remain a defendant in the case.

The next chapter is in Rain Valley and a young girl has been found up in a tree in the park holding a wolf pup. No one knows where she came from, she doesn’t talk, just stares and will not come down. Ellen Barton, the police chief gets there and tries to decide what to do and how to get them down. She finally got some food, and that worked. The girl got down with the wolf pup and sniffed the air like litter mates and then dived into the food tearing at it and eating. The chief had a net and tossed it over the two and they went crazy trying to get out. Then someone shot a tranquilizer into the wolf and he went to sleep. Then the girl got tranquilized too so the two of them could be moved to safe areas.

Next chapter, Julia is trying to get her life back after the lawsuit but everyone has canceled their appointments with her. Ellen Barton is trying to figure out how to find the parents of this little girl. Eventually, trying to get the girl to communicate with them they decided to call Julia back to help them. She has not been to her home town for years. Ellen also lives in the house they grew up in and Julia has trepidation about all of this. But she has nothing better to do and she is very qualified to handle this kind of case.

There is alot of mystery in this book that really keeps you wondering. Who is the little girl, how did she get there, why are there scars on her ankles or a deep wound on her shoulder. How long has she lived in the forest with the wolves? Mostly, who are her parents and they should be wanting her back? The town has taken her under their wings. She is their child now. The book is also interesting with the many different twists and stories that come out with the main characters. It of course doesn’t turn out like you may consider like it should.

As like Kristin Hannah’s books you always need to keep a box of tissues nearby.

Book Review – The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

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I have decided that Kristin Hannah is one of my very favorite authors. Her books call to my interests, history, romance, drama and family, I have read The Great Alone, The Nightingale, Night Road, this one, The Four Winds and I have watched the series made out of Firefly Lane. There are so many more to read and I look forward to each one.

This book starts in the early 1920’s in Texas. In the beginning of the book the farmers in Texas had great crop weather year after year and the wealth and abundance was high. Then the 1930’s came along and rain dried up everything and the dust storms started. They were not able to grow anything, the water dried up, the animals were dying from lack of food and water. The dust storms would just blow in sometimes for days. People would become ill from ingesting the dust into their lungs and stomach.

This was the time of Franklin Deleno Roosevelt and the New Deal but the dust bowl was slow to get recognition to get help. Finally, when a government official from the Conservation Corp. who had been touring the Great Plains, spoke with the farmers he met with resistance. Farmers are very proud and do not want to receive assistance from the government. Also what they were told was that they were part of the reason that caused the dust bowl. That did not go over well, of course. By getting rid of the natural prairie grasses and turning the land into farmland then essentially nothing growing on it the dry topsoil would blow and blow. I remember from my reading of Laura Ingalls Wilder this was mentioned when they lived in Kansas and farming was so hard much earlier. The government wanted the farmers to turn their land back into prairie grasses again and the farmers would be subsidized for this. It was slow to catch on and people started to move to the west coast like California and Oregon with the promise of jobs.

The 25 year old female character in the beginning of the book was named Elsa. Her family was very wealthy and contributed much to the community. Elsa had been unwell when she was young, and the family treated her as if she was still sick and really didn’t think or let her be part of the family. She wasn’t listened to, wasn’t asked to be part of the fun of the family. She spent much time in her room, read a lot and did needlework. She was also made to feel she was ugly and no one would want to be married to her. One day she went to the store and found some red material. She decided to make a dress out of it and went out on the town. She met a young handsome man and one thing led to another and she became pregnant. The family found out who the young man was, took her to their house and dumped her off because she has shamed her family. This is really when Elsa’s life became interesting, and this family became everything to her.

She came to love the farm, learned things, worked hard, wanted to be a good wife and fell in love with her in-laws. She ended up having a little girl, then a boy and another child that passed away. Her husband couldn’t stand the sadness of the dust bowl and left the family, and they were of course, devastated.

Eventually Elsa had to make her way away from the prairie and took her two children to California. To drive hundreds of miles with so many others, across the desert to find a better life. Of course, it is never as good as they think it is going to be but Elsa and the kids learn and become strong and meet others who are in the same boat. These people who once had been wealthy but lost everything. I will leave it here, pick up this book, it is very good to find out how Elsa and her family survive.