I’m sure I’ve said it before, but if I haven’t I’ll say it now. Hannah is incapable of telling a bad story. Every word she writes is absolutely captivating. I had just come off my third re-read of The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons when I picked up a copy of Winter Garden because I was having all sorts of feelings for good, old, Leningrad. While it was awhile from the time the book hit my personal bookshelf until I got to read/listen to it, I’m so glad I eventually did.

Winter Garden is an emotional journey of self exploration, self-love and acceptance, and the eventual strength of a family bond. Once their father takes ill, Nina, Meredith, and Anya are forced to take a long, hard look at their lives and decide it is now or never to become a unit. It takes a lot of pushing each other’s buttons, shutting out work and others in their lives, and realizing that life is short before they start making any progress.

Meredith and Nina come to the realization that their childhood and their mother’s aloofness towards them is what shaped their entire adult lives. Anya has a past that she isn’t willing to face, even in her eighties. It’s only Nina’s persistence with the help of Russian vodka that Anya slowly but surely opens up. What her daughters hear is a story they are beyond unprepared to comprehend.

Getting their mother’s difficult past out in the open helps them work through their issues, and not only do the girls learn lessons to implement in their own lives moving forward, but they also understand why Anya has always been the way she has around them. Best of all, they forgive her. A traumatic young life crippled the way their mother lived for decades, and the only regret the girls seem to have once they know the truth is that they didn’t know sooner so they could help their mom cope.

Flashing between past and present, I felt like I traveled the globe with this poor, broken family. From their home base in Washington, to war-torn Russia, Alaska, and time on the open water during a cruise, the landscape aides in the characters’ healing.

This story broke my heart, but I felt it was such an important one to tell. It had history, drama, trauma, family, and psychological ways to heal in times of immense pain and suffering. I finished this book while I was at work and I had to hold back tears at having been on such an amazing, emotional journey with such powerful women and the ties they formed.

If you have not done so already, please do yourselves a favor and read this gorgeous novel!