A Promise in Pieces
May 6th, 2014. Filed under: Tuesday's Tempting Reads.A Promise in Pieces
By Emily T. Wierenga
Quilts tell stories of love and loss, hope and faith, tradition and new beginnings. The Quilts of Love series focuses on the women who quilted all of these things into their family histories. A new book releases each month and features contemporary and historical romances as well as women’s fiction and the occasional light mystery. You will be drawn into the endearing characters of this series and be touched by their stories.
A baby quilt touches many hearts as it travels from family-to-family and through generations.
After the end of World War II, Clara Kirkpatrick returns from the Women’s Army Corp to deliver a dying soldier’s last wishes: convey his love to his young widow, Mattie, with apologies for the missed life they had planned to share.
Struggling with her own post-war trauma, Clara thinks she’s not prepared to handle the grief of this broken family. Yet upon meeting Mattie, and receiving a baby quilt that will never cuddle the soldier’s baby, Clara vows to honor the sacrifices that family made.
Now a labor and delivery nurse in her rural hometown, Clara wraps each new babe in the gifted quilt and later stitches the child’s name into the cloth. As each new child is welcomed by the quilt, Clara begins to wonder whatever happened to Mattie—and if her own life would ever experience the love of a newborn. Little does she know that she will have the opportunity to re-gift the special quilt—years later and carrying even greater significance than when it was first bestowed.
ISLAND BREEZES
All I can say is you’d better have that box of tissues handy, because you can’t get through this book without them.
Clara began her nursing career caring for wounded WWII soldiers, but after the war, the only way she could use her skills was as a midwife assisting the local doctor.
In between those two professions she delivered a note from a dying soldier to his widow. She came back home with a baby quilt that would never see it’s original purpose.
Clara gave this quilt to the used with each new baby she delivered. She embroidered every baby’s name on it. Along the way this led into the founding of an organization to memorialize deceased veterans.
On a trip to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, life makes a significant detour for Clara and her family.
Ms Wierenga gives us food for thought on many levels in this touching novel.
***A special thank you to litfuse for providing a review copy.***
Emily Wierenga is a former editor, ghostwriter, freelance writer and staff journalist, a monthly columnist for The Christian Courier, and the author of Save My Children (Castle Quay Books, 2008), Chasing Silhouettes (Ampelon Publishing, 2012) and Mom in the Mirror (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). Emily resides in Alberta, Canada. This is her first novel.