Caroline Shelby’s life has been turned upside down. First, scandal destroys the promising clothing designer’s budding career in New York. Then, Caroline’s close friend dies suddenly, leaving her the legal guardian of her friend’s two young children, Flick and Addie, a task for which she feels totally unprepared.
With nothing to keep her in New York, Caroline drives cross-country with her two grieving charges to Oysterville, Washington, the hometown she left years earlier and to which she never envisioned returning. There, she finds her family and town both familiar and changed. She must also face her first love, Will, who married her then-best friend, Sierra. Returning to the fabric shop where she discovered her love of design, Caroline slowly begins to rebuild her life and career and even discovers her mothering skills. She also assuages her guilt in failing to help her late friend by creating the Oysterville Sewing Circle, a group for women who’ve experienced abuse.
With The Oysterville Sewing Circle, Susan Wiggs tackles the painful subject of domestic violence in a life-affirming way. While Wiggs doesn’t shy away from addressing abuse in its myriad forms through the stories of the women in the sewing circle, a central theme of this novel is the healing power of family and community, and especially women supporting one another. Furthermore, as a resident of one of the Puget Sound islands, Wiggs writes with an intimate knowledge of the area, which makes her fictional town of Oysterville come alive on the page. Readers will long to visit and meet her characters in the local shops.
Author of over 50 novels, including the Lakeshore Chronicles, Wiggs has written another compelling novel that will grab readers’ hearts, hold their attention and leave them with a sense of hope.
