Welcome to Litsy!

I‘d been ambivalent about the Kristin Hannah books I‘d read before this one, but I couldn‘t quite resist a bit of Russian history and the suitably wintery cover. And it was a good one! Moving between the present in an American apple orchard and the 1941 siege of Leningrad, I was thoroughly pulled into the family dynamics and awful backstory. Yes I cried. Easy yet gripping reading, a great one to hunker down with in a storm.

My grandfather was Russian and escaped. This story of the Siege of Leningrad brings light to the suffering that has happened in Russia forever. Sisters that want to know why their mother cannot love them. Kristin Hannah‘s books always deliver. The strongest of women survive.

What a story of heartbreaking and tragic loss. I shed tears and felt such sadness and pain for the difficult time in world history. Historical fiction touches us in different ways. Living in Leningrad Russia during WWII and surviving was huge indeed. 5/5

A college of mine recommended me this book and I am nor disopponited at all. It is wuite funny but so real about the war.

There seem to be thousands of books with gardens!

“How could any woman know her own story until she knew her mother's?”

#Garden 🩷🌸🌱💛🌼🌿🧡🌻🍃💚

#StorySettings

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

How did I sleep on this one for so long? It‘s a thoroughly entertaining read about two unlikely comrades on an even unlikelier quest set against the backdrop of WWII Russia.

1. Persuasion
2. Lonesome Dove
3. City of Thieves

#TLT #ThreeListThursday
@Dabbe

I liked this one but the story felt very familiar as well as fairly forgettable.

Kristin Hannah tends to be hit or miss for me as far as the writing itself. I like her stories, but not always her writing style, though she has matured and her more recent novels are better. This one falls somewhere in between for me, actually somewhere between a pick and a so-so. The second half was definitely stronger than the first.

A must read for any classical music or Russian history buff