Book Review - A Promise In Pieces

About Quilts of Love: 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.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

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.

Learn more about Emily at: http://www.emilywierenga.com

MY REVIEW:

This book was so good, I read it in one sitting! I loved the pace of it and the fact that it wasn't a typical story. 

It starts out in 2000 with Clara, her husband, her son and grandson driving in a car to New Orleans to deliver the special quilt, she holds in her possession, to the museum. While going there, Clara shares her story with her grandson. This story starts during World War II. 

Clara has grown up in a strict, Christian household where her father was rather standoffish and a preacher who preached peace. Clara's mother is a timid woman who Clara loves but doesn't understand. There are some secrets that don't come out until later in the book to explain why her parents are this way. Clara has gotten her nursing degree and decides to join the Army nurses against her parents wishes. 

Clara sees all kinds of horror as she cares for these men in Normandy. Her heart has been hardened against God because of her father, but then she meets a soldier, who has been wounded that helps her to see God as the loving God He is. This starts Clara on a chain of events that will change her life forever. 

The thing that really stands out in the book to me is that we have to be willing to put our heart out there, to maybe get hurt in the process. Sometimes God allows the pain to give us strength so we can do what He calls us to do.  

This was a wonderful story, which characters you'll not soon forget. It deserves 5 out of 5 stars!

*This book was provided to me for my honest review LitFuse Publicity Group

Blessings - Julie