The Great Alone

In 1974, thirteen-year-old Leni Allbright's family is always one bad decision from disaster. Her father, Ernt, came home from a Vietnamese POW camp volatile and haunted, unable to hold a job or his temper. On impulse he moves the family to a remote homestead in Alaska, promising a fresh start off the grid.

At first the wild beauty of the last frontier and the fierce, generous community that surrounds them seems to offer exactly that. But Alaska is unforgiving, and as the long, dark winter closes in, Ernt's paranoia and violence deepen behind closed doors. Caught in the riptide of her parents' passionate, destructive marriage, Leni comes of age torn between love for her damaged father, fear for her mother, and a first love that offers a way out.

Kristin Hannah's novel is a sweeping, harrowing story of survival, both against the elements and within a family, and of the courage it takes to break free.