When Winter Comes

By: V. A. Shannon

Narrated by: Susannah Jones

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

In the voice of an unforgettable heroine, V. A. Shannon explores one of the most harrowing episodes in pioneer history - the ill-fated journey of the Donner Party - in a mesmerizing novel of resilience and survival.

Mrs. Jacob Klein has a husband, children, and a warm and comfortable home in California. No one - not even her family - knows how she came to be out West 13 years ago. Jacob, a kind and patient man, has promised not to ask. But if she were to tell her story, she would recount a tale of tragedy, mishaps, and unthinkable choices - yet also sacrifice, courage, and a powerful, unexpected love....

1846: On the outskirts of Cincinnati, wagons gather by the hundreds, readying to head west to California. Among the throng is a 15-year-old girl eager to escape her abusive family. With just a few stolen dollars to her name, she enlists as helpmate to a married couple with a young daughter. Their group stays optimistic in the face of the journey's hazards and delays. Then comes a decision that she is powerless to prevent: Instead of following the wagon train's established route, the Donner Party will take a shortcut over the Sierras, aiming to clear the mountains before the first snows descend.

In the years since that infamous winter, other survivors have sold their accounts for notoriety and money, lurid tales often filled with half-truths or blatant, gory lies. Now, Mrs. Klein must decide whether to keep those bitter memories secret, or risk destroying the life she has endured so much to build.

©2018 V. A. Shannon (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Interesting listen

Realistic without being too gruesome. Kept my intetest throughout. Now I want to research the tragedy myself!

Worth a read

This book was very interesting and definitely worth reading. I didn’t know much about the Donner party besides I have drove over the Donner Pass on I 80 headed into Sacramento. I didn’t know that they ended up being cannibalism and never thought too much about it. This story definitely gave me a true understanding of what starvation and hunger would be like and what peoples limits might be. I very much enjoyed the story but the authors notes at the end which were from one of the rescuers of the Donner camp is quite gnarly. The author did not write this it comes directly from the newspaper printed on the mans Account. If you do not want to be disturbed do not listen to the authors notes and she does say to take that portion with a grain of salt because it is not necessarily fact because he was a mountain man and did not know how to read or write…. (but he was able to keep a journal so could be faults).

Whoa

This is so well done. The author wrote an excellent, well-researched story & the narrator did an excellent job performing it. It drew me in immediately. So beautiful, so sad.

Great Story, well read.

This book was one of those that you didn’t want to stop listening to, the narrator was superb and I will be looking for other books that she has narrated.

excellent telling of the tragic story

well read. includes some poetic license, but tells the story well. enjoyed it very much.

I couldn’t “put it down”, BUT...

It’s a story of tragedy and was disturbing on many levels. I learned a lot from this book, but it was also heartbreaking and there were definitely parts I did not enjoy, not because it was poorly narrated or written (to the contrary, narration and writing were very good), but because it was just really hard to listen to people treating each other so horribly.

A Tragedy

This story is tragic and heartbreaking, but done so incredibly well. I didn't get bored once.

Surprising

It never give reviews but feel compelled by this book. I am generally a non fiction reader, so I approached this with a lot of trepidation. I was very surprised at how well this was researched. The author very successfully set the fictional heroine into the true story. It was fairly well done and I felt that I could see the situation through her eyes. I especially enjoyed the descriptive elements ( the Wasatch mountains) and the deep
Insight into the foibles of the human heart and flaws of the
human characters.

Historical fiction

A compelling fictional account of the disasterous Donner Party, personalized by a first person narrative. Although it is a harrowing story, the gruesome details are kept to a minimum. The story did get a bit bogged down with the number of names of members of the party and the disputes, some petty, some serious, that arose. I felt that the ending was a bit abrupt, as I had become invested in the unnamed narrators struggle to move past that terrible winter. The narrator was excellent.

Well written, but gruesome...

This was a good, well written historical novel. However I cannot say that I enjoyed it, as it was a gruesome and sad story. But, I knew that going in since it is about the Donner Party. Overall, I recommend this book, but with caution. Be prepared to hear gory details of the survival, and death of those in the Donner Party.