Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Winter Garden cover art

Winter Garden

By: Kristin Hannah
Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £22.99

Buy Now for £22.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

True Colors cover art
Night Road cover art
Between Sisters cover art
Summer Island cover art
Firefly Lane cover art
The Things We Do for Love cover art
The Girl from the Train cover art
We Hope for Better Things cover art
Found cover art
Follow the Stars Home cover art
The Poisonwood Bible cover art
The Girls with No Names cover art
Ink and Bone cover art
I Liked My Life cover art
This Bright Beauty cover art
Pretend She's Here cover art

Editor reviews

In Kristin Hannah’s Winter Garden, we find three women — a mother and two daughters by blood, but strangers in their hearts — reeling from the loss of the man who held their fragile family together. Emptiness pervades this story — hollowing out what is left of the Whitson family and creeping into the space between narrator Susan Erickson’s words.

Anya and her daughters Meredith and Nina have already lost their husband and father to death — and risk losing each other to pride. Evan Whitson knew of this risk, and on his deathbed asked his wife to tell their daughters her “fairy tale” from start to finish. And so we find the Whitson women gathered in the dark at their family home, Belye Nochi, night after night.

Meredith is the older daughter who stayed home to take care of the family business, and her marriage is falling apart. Younger sister Nina, meanwhile, has traveled the globe as a renowned photographer, but refuses to marry the love of her life. Neither sister has much of a relationship with the other — much less with their cold and distant mother, Anya, whose mysterious past in Russia haunts them all.

Erickson’s Anya is resolute, her Nina bold, and her Meredith lost. Effortlessly, it seems, Erickson captures in one moment the decades of sorrow in Anya’s voice and in the next the ready spirit in Nina’s. Always we hear the sheer exhaustion in Meredith’s. Erickson’s voice is at times empty and full, icy and warm, sharp and soft. Throughout the book all three women are alternately devastated with loss, isolated by bitterness, and joyous for the love of family, and Erickson lets us hear it all with her honest and gentle delivery.

Winter Garden is a story best listened to — it is after all a testament to the power of storytelling. What Meredith and Nina hear in their mother’s story will cause them to face their grief head on and just might make them a family once again. —Sarah Evans Hogeboom

Summary

Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn't know her mother?

From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes Kristin Hannah's powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past.

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time - and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya's life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother's life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

©2010 by Kristin Hannah. (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“It's a tearjerker, but the journey is as lovely - and haunting - as a snow filled winter's night.” --People Magazine

“This tearjerker weaves a convincing historical novel and contemporary family drama.” --Library Journal

“Readers will find it hard not to laugh a little and cry a little more as mother and daughters reach out to each other just in the nick of time.” --Publishers Weekly 

What listeners say about Winter Garden

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    290
  • 4 Stars
    119
  • 3 Stars
    48
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    13
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    276
  • 4 Stars
    83
  • 3 Stars
    39
  • 2 Stars
    14
  • 1 Stars
    8
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    261
  • 4 Stars
    91
  • 3 Stars
    47
  • 2 Stars
    8
  • 1 Stars
    14

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Winter Garden

I chose this audibook after reading many good reviews about the novel. It tells the story about the relationship between two sisters and their mother who has always been very cold and distant to them. When the father (who was the strengh of the family) dies, following a promise that the 3 women made to him, the mother explains to her daughers the truth of her earlier life in Leningrad during the war. This story helps the daughters understand their mother better and changes completety their relationship. For me the story is an example of how important it is to talk about emotions and feelings to the people you love, and how misunderstandings can spoil relationships. I would recommend this book as I really enjoyed it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

phenominal

absolutely phenomenal storyline. it has me gripped from the start and I was in floods of tears at the end. can't rate this title high enough. amazing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Stick with it!

As others have said in reviews the beginning is a little slow and repetitive and must admit to nearly giving up. SO glad I didn’t though this book is well worth the listening time! The details of the Seige of Leningrad and the suffering it caused are harrowing and so sad .. the way the story pans out is well written and I enjoyed the unfolding.

Stick with it and you will not be disappointed but have your handkerchief ready!

My only gripe was the narration Irish accent .. made me cringe a bit!! However only a small part of an otherwise brilliant story

Highly recommend.. a great book for book clubs to read and discuss

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Dammit she can write a good story

Never been disappointed with a Kristen Hannah novel. Always learn lots, and want them to go on longer. That's the whole point isn't it?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A story within a story

At first, while listening to this, I did not like it as much as Kristin Hannah’s other books. It took until I was well into ‘the fairy story’ before I really began to get engrossed with the way it was told. As with The Nightingale and The Great Alone the story carried you along, you became close to the characters and each one had me in tears at the end. I was sorry to leave each family when it was over.
Kristin Hannah has a nice writing style and I like the way her characters evolve.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

I live Kristen Hannah books but found this one really boring and slightly ridiculous- not for me.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing description of the siege of Leningrad

I really enjoyed this book overall. The descriptions of family relations were very perceptive, though I got a bit bored by the repetition of these at about chapter 7/8. It is worth persevering though, as the later chapters are incredible, with their heart-breaking description of the siege of Leningrad. I cried a lot in those chapters. The coincidence that occurs towards the end of the story, when the family is in Alaska, is a bit hard to credit, but it makes a good story. It is a hard book to narrate, with the Russian accent and the Irish one. The former slipped from time to time but the latter was a travesty - it could have been many accents, but Irish was rarely detectable. That's why I have given the performance 3 stars. Kristin Hannah is an excellent storyteller.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Absorbing

This book for me took a while to get into, but I am so glad I persevered. The mix of present moment storyline with the two sisters lives with the drawing out of their mother's life story, to the resolution. I found the Russian history fascinating, the momentum of the book, the characters journey, all so well rounded, I just loved this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The heartbreaking story

Love that an American author shines light on Russian not much spoken of history. The tragedies of war is sadly not mentioned much in schools. Only the politics of war. The suffering and sacrifices is what we should be thought about.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The narrative voices were poignant

Beautiful historical fiction so sensitively and thoughtfully narrated. Heart wrenching and profound. A beautiful piece of writing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!