The Great Alone is a novel that will appeal to most women.  It has adventure, romance and danger.  When Leni Allbright is in junior high, her father, a Viet Nam vet who has what would now be termed post traumatic stress disorder, decides to move his family to a remote part of Alaska.   The winters in Alaska are cold, dark and long and with each year her father becomes more unstable and abusive.  Despite her difficult, frightening life,  Leni comes to love Alaska-the scenery, the vastness and the independent, live- off- the- land people.

Kristen Hannah has written a fast-paced novel with an admirable main character.  However, I think the novel might be best read in the summer when long, frozen Alaskan nights would feel welcoming.