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Winter Garden

by Kristin Hannah

   Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One  stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family business; the  other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous  photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, these two  estranged sisters will find themselves together again, standing  alongside their disapproving mother, Anya, who even now offers no  comfort to her daughters. On his deathbed, their father extracts a  promise: Anya will tell her daughters a story; it is one she began years  ago and never finished. This time she will tell it all the way to the  end.

The tale their mother tells them is unlike anything they’ve  heard before—a captivating, mysterious love story that spans more than  sixty years and moves from frozen, war-torn Leningrad to modern-day  Alaska. Nina’s obsession to uncover the truth will send them all on an  unexpected journey into their mother’s past, where they will discover a  secret so shocking, it shakes the foundation of their family and changes  who they believe they are. 

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   After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in  the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds  herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence  is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing  the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world,  she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the  forest—and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening  her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and  escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come  together in a shocking collision that could change everything. crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?