Mailbox Monday is a fun meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that came into our house by mail. I got some wonderful books this week in my mailbox.
Winter Garden is a beautiful and haunting story that will touch your heart and remain in your thoughts for days. It highlights the fragility of the mother-daughter bond and the endearing love that can survive between mothers, daughters and sisters.
Kristin Hannah states that this line was the start of her writing this book and it is one that is so fitting to this story....
Sometimes when you open the door to your mother’s past, you find your own future…
Meredith and Nina are estranged sisters and they both are very different. Meredith stays in her hometown to raise her family and run the family apple orchard business. Nina leaves town as soon as she can and travels the world as a photojournalist and rarely visits her family. Their beloved father who is the family patriarch becomes ill and they both make promises to him upon his deathbed. Little did they know that these promises would be so challenging and life changing.
The sisters were never close to their mother Anya. She was distant and cold and seemed so unhappy. They learned at very young ages not to expect comfort, love or even a hug from their mother. Fortunately, their father was the loving and fun one but he still couldn't protect them from the hurt their mother's actions resulted in. Their mother did one thing for them, she told them enchanting Russian fairytales which later they would learn held a secret to her past.
Meredith and Nina finally put the pieces of the puzzle together and uncovered the secrets of their mother's past. The truth that they uncover is one that is so unimaginable that it challenges who they thought they were and changes the roots of their family in an amazing way.
I absolutely loved this book as it is written with such strong female characters and a plot that unwinds and flows seamlessly. There is a mystery and a love story that takes the reader through the war ravaged days of Leningrad when Stalin was in charge and during the siege of Leningrad, through to the modern days in Washington and Alaska. The historical part of this story was told in such detail starting as a fairy tale until the brutal truth is unraveled. Anya, appears like a cold, detached mother who doesn't love her daughters but that is so far from the truth. She is a strong woman that has endured much that she has kept buried as it was too painful to reveal. She has a great and deep love that will be revealed in her story with a major surprise at the end that I did not see coming.
I have read several of Kristin Hannah's earlier books but that was years ago. I have to say that her writing has grown and blossomed and Winter Garden will be one of my favorite books by Ms. Hannah. I highly encourage you to pick up a copy, you will enjoy this beautifully written novel. I was entranced in this story while reading it and it has stayed with me since I finished it.
This would make an excellent book to discuss with a book club as there are so many themes to discuss.
You can read more about Kristin Hannah and her other novels at her website, here.
Here is a wonderful video I found where Kristin Hannah shares her thoughts on Winter Gardens:
Disclosure: My Advanced Reading Copy of this book was provided through the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. I am an Amazon Associate and an Indiebound Associate.
Gretchen Rubin has a wonderful life, she's married to a patient and loving husband and has two children, she has a writing career and lives in New York City. Her in-laws live practically around the corner and she gets along with them! She has a revelation of sorts one day while riding on a city bus. She realizes that time is passing her by and she's not focusing on the things that truly matter. She realizes that she could be happier and appreciate her life and family more and embarks on a Happiness Project for one year. Gretchen methodically sets up resolutions, commandments and goals for each month of the year focusing on different aspects of her life to improve upon. She chronicles this journey in her honest and inspirational book, the full title is: The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.
The book takes us through the year of this project with Gretchen, month by month. Each month she sets a goal as well as ideas and projects for her to achieve the goal. They were different each month but tended to build on the previous goal. For example, in January her goal was to Boost Energy by getting more sleep, exercising more and what I found insightful was that Gretchen found "acting" more energetic and happy actually worked. Gretchen was inspired by this quote :
"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." Mark Twain.
She then tackles her marriage in the next month with the goal to Remember Love. She then adds other months that address work, parenthood, leisure, friendship and more. I liked how the book was organized into dedicated chapters for each month. It was nice to focus on the one goal and it made it easier to read and the book flowed well.
Gretchen is not done learning but she did find out how important this project was in getting to know herself and be herself. She was very honest in sharing her weaknesses as well as her struggles and successes along the way. I enjoyed her honesty and sense of humor and some of her conclusions were very interesting. The Happiness Project is full of ideas to inspire you and you just may learn a few new things that may challenge you to start a Happiness Project of your own. Reading The Happiness Project has made me think about my attitude toward happiness and I'm making some changes of my own after being inspired by Gretchen's journey.
A poignant debut novel about the transformative powers of yoga and friendship for four women on the verge of realizing their dreams
With beauty, brains, and a high-paying Wall Street position, Charlie was a woman who seemed to have it all—until she turned thirty and took stock of her life, or lack thereof. She left it all behind to pursue yoga, and now, two years later, she's looking to drum up business for her fledgling studio in Brooklyn. Attending her college's alumni night with fliers in tow, she reconnects with three former classmates whose post-graduation lives, like hers, haven't turned out like they'd hoped.
Romance book editor Sabine still longs to write the novel that's bottled up inside her. Once an up-and-coming photographer and Upper East Side social darling, Naomi is now a single mom who hasn't picked up her camera in years. And Bess, who dreamed of being a serious investigative journalist a la Christiane Amanpour, is stuck in a rut, writing snarky captions for a gossip mag. But at a weekly yoga class at Charlie's studio, the four friends, reunited ten years after college, will forge new bonds and take new chances—as they start over, fall in love, change their lives...and come face-to-face with hauntingrealities.
Balancing Acts by Zoe Fishman is a story about women's friendship, it's about a group of women in their 30's at different stages of their lives. They are all single, looking for their dreams and passion that seems to have gotten lost along the way since they left college. They all meet up at a college reunion and forge a friendship of sorts and meet for a six week yoga class. The book mainly focuses on this six week time period in the women's lives.
I am a fan of women's fiction and books about women's friendship and was excited when I heard about this book. It sounded wonderful and I also liked the link to yoga and what a group of friends could learn as they take a yoga class together. I'm sorry to say that the story just didn't work for me. It was a bit too soap opera-ish and sappy for me and I just never cared much for any of the characters or connected to them. I think that this book is geared more towards the twenty-something and thirty-something single or just married woman readers. It wasn't a book that worked for me. If you enjoy books about women's friendships with an added bonus of yoga classes and a bit of a soap opera style feel, you just may enjoy this book.
Here are some reviews with different perspectives:
Mailbox Monday is a fun meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that came into our house by mail. I got some wonderful books this week in my mailbox.
This is Me From Now On by Barbara Dee from the author ( I'm going to have a fun giveaway and a review coming up later this month to conincide with the book release)
by Roger Rosenblatt from Paperbackswap
by Carolyn Parkhurst from Random House
by Karen White from Penguin for a TLC Book Tour in May
by Robin Maxwell won from Devourer of Books
by Debbie Macomber from Big Honcho Media
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by Brunonia Barry from 
by Stephanie Cowell from 
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by Jean Kwok from 
by Diane Meier from 
by Barbara K. Richardson from 
by Marina Fiorato