About the book:
A gifted young quilter… a successful artist… the life-changing revelation that threatens to tear them apart…
Linda Mueller lives an orderly, uneventful existence, content to divide her time between creating the beautiful quilts for which she is known and working at an Englisch fabric shop.
Idealistic to a fault, Linda has never found a man worth marrying—until she meets Isaac Mast, a newcomer to Lancaster County and a talented painter. As they bond over their respective crafts, Linda is drawn to Isaac’s kind ways, humble spirit, and intriguing personality, and soon the seams of her carefully-constructed world begin to loosen.
With Isaac’s help, she explores the story of her late grandmother, also a gifted artist. But when an astonishing truth comes to light, Linda faces a grave decision, one that could destroy any hope of a future with Isaac. Will their dreams of a life together completely unravel? Or can she find some way to stitch them back together again?
My review:
This was a fascinating book that was hard to put down! I love anything to do with genealogy so following Linda on this journey as she tries to find out about her grandmother's past, her art and why she stopped painting was so interesting. I love that family members Linda's family has been out of touch with for years or that Linda's never even met come back into their lives. I liked Linda for the most part but I did feel she was somewhat immature and I felt a little impatient and frustrated with her for how she treated Isaac. Isaac seemed like a wonderful guy, maybe a little too perfect. The story was told in the first person from Linda's perspective so we get to know her a lot better than Isaac; the first person style isn't used nearly as often as the third person so it was a refreshing change, though I did miss Isaac's viewpoint. I really liked that grace was emphasized and the gospel was explained. It's also pointed out how unforgiveness and skewed theology can damage a person. I liked that depression was addressed. It was also interesting to see characters with autism and how the Amish view that. There was a little bit of romance. This worked well as a stand-alone, though characters from previous books do show up. Overall, this was a wonderful story if you like Amish or genealogy stories!
I received a copy of this book from Harvest House Publishers. I was not required to write a positive review and have not been compensated for this. This is my honest opinion.