Kate’s 2¢: “Winter Garden” by Kristin Hannah

“Winter Garden” by Kristin Hannah

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   As I read the first part of this story, I thought: Why the heavy doom and gloom?  By the end of the story, I needed a box of tissues.

   This well crafted story within a story, still has another story. I really got interested in the story as the mother told more of her war story.

   Susan Ericksen did a great job of reading this book.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kristin Hannah (born September 25, 1960) [3]is an American writer. Her most notable works include Winter Garden, The Nightingale, Firefly Lane, The Great Alone, and The Four Winds. In 2024, The Women, was published. It is set in the United States in the 1960s during the Vietnam War.[4]

Biography[edit]

Kristin Hannah was born in California. After graduating with a degree in communication from the University of Washington in 1983, Hannah worked at an advertising agency in Seattle. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound law school and practiced law in Seattle before becoming a full-time writer. Hannah wrote her first novel with her mother, who was dying of cancer at the time, but the book was never published.[5]

Hannah’s best-selling work, The Nightingale, has sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide and has been published in 45 languages.[6][7]

Hannah lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington,[8] with her husband and their son.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Winter garden: a novel DB70583

Hannah, Kristin. Reading time: 14 hours, 46 minutes.

Read by Susan Ericksen.

Family

Psychological Fiction

Sisters Meredith, a homebody, and Nina, a world-traveling photojournalist, reunite at their father’s deathbed along with Anya, their coldhearted Russian mother. Anya promises her husband that she will tell the girls the story of her past in war-torn Leningrad. Strong language, some violence, and some explicit descriptions of sex. Commercial audiobook. 2010.

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Kate’s 2¢: “The Lovely Bones: A Novel” by Alice Sebold

“The Lovely Bones: A Novel” by Alice Sebold

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Just the thought of losing a child is abhorrent, especially, if it is an unsolved murder. Sebold’s command of the craft of writing is evident by her use of the dead child’s point of view. The child is adjusting to being in heaven as well as observing her family’s and friend’ changing relationships without her.

   Jill Fox did a good job of narrating this book for us.

A few take-aways:

“…He maintained…the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying, were not the results of strokes.”

“…the dead truly talk to us.. In the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe.” 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alice Sebold (born September 6, 1963)[1] is an American author. She is known for her novels The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, and a memoir, Lucky. The Lovely Bones was on The New York Times Best Seller list and was adapted into a film by the same name in 2009.

Her memoir, Lucky, sold over a million copies and describes her experience in her first year at Syracuse University, when she was raped. She wrongly accused Anthony Broadwater of being the perpetrator. Broadwater spent 16 years in prison. He was exonerated in 2021, after a judge overturned the original conviction. Consequently, the publisher of Lucky announced that the book would no longer be distributed.

Early life and education[edit]

Sebold was born in Madison, Wisconsin.[2] She grew up in the Paoli suburb of Philadelphia, where her father taught Spanish at the University of Pennsylvania.[3] While they were young, Sebold and her older sister, Mary, often had to take care of their mother, a journalist for a local paper, who suffered from panic attacks and drank heavily.[2]

Sebold graduated from Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, in 1980. Sebold attended Syracuse University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. Among her professors was Tess Gallagher, who became one of Sebold’s confidantes.[4] Also among her professors were Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, and Hayden Carruth.[5]

After graduating in 1984, she briefly attended the University of Houston in Texas, for graduate school, then moved to Manhattan for the next 10 years.[6] She held several waitressing jobs while pursuing a writing career, but neither her poetry nor her attempts at writing a novel came to fruition.[7]

Sebold left New York for Southern California, where she became a caretaker of an artists’ colony, earning $386 a month and living in a cabin in the woods without electricity.[3] She earned an MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 1998.[6]

Rape and writing of Lucky[edit]

   In 1996 or 1997, she began writing a novel about the rape and murder of an adolescent girl. The interim title was Monsters.[2] She found herself struggling to finish it, and abandoned several other novels she had also started.[11] Eventually, she realized she needed to write about the rape and its impact on her first.[3]

Lucky was published in 1999, in which she described every aspect of the rape in graphic detail. She used the fictitious name “Gregory Madison” for the rapist.[3][8] The title of her memoir stemmed from a conversation with a police officer who told her that another woman had been raped and murdered in the same location, and that Sebold was “lucky” because she hadn’t been killed.[12] Sebold wrote that the attack made her feel isolated from her family, and that for years afterwards, she experienced hypervigilance. She resigned her night job, fearing danger in darkness. She was depressed, suffered from nightmares, drank heavily and snorted heroin for three years. Eventually, after reading Judith Lewis Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, she realized she had developed post-traumatic stress disorder.[13]

According to one reviewer, Lucky was positively reviewed and then “sank into oblivion”.[14] After Sebold became successful with her 2002 novel, The Lovely Bones, interest in the memoir picked up and it went on to sell over one million copies.[15]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The lovely bones: a novel DB54698

Sebold, Alice. Reading time: 10 hours, 45 minutes.

Read by Jill Fox.

Psychological Fiction

Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl murdered by a neighbor, watches over her family and friends from heaven. While adjusting to a new habitat, she reaches out to them as she observes their struggle to survive their grief. Some descriptions of sex, some violence, and some strong language. Bestseller. 2002.

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Kate’s 2¢: “There Will Never Be Another You: A Novel” by Carolyn See

“There Will Never Be Another You: A Novel” by Carolyn See

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   At first I thought Edith was the main character, but it turns out that Phil garners the spotlight. I enjoyed the story, although it was hard to follow at times.

   Of course, being read by my all-time favorite narrator, Martha Harmon Pardee, added to my listening enjoyment.

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carolyn See (born Caroline Laws;[2] January 13, 1934 – July 13, 2016) was an American educator and critic. She was the professor emerita of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.[3]

See was the author of ten books, including the memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, an advice book on writing, Making a Literary Life, and the novels There Will Never Be Another You, Golden Days, and The Handyman. She was also a book critic for the Washington Post for 27 years.

See died on July 13, 2016 in Santa Monica, California from cancer, aged 82.[4]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

There will never be another you: a novel DB62792

See, Carolyn. Reading time: 5 hours, 22 minutes.

Read by Martha Harmon Pardee.

Psychological Fiction

Los Angeles dermatologist Philip Fuchs divides his energies among his work, widowed mother, disgruntled wife, and unruly children until he joins an elite counter-bioterrorism team, created after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The assignment is ultimately overshadowed by his domestic affairs. Strong language and some descriptions of sex. Bestseller. 2006.

Downloaded: January 10, 2025

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