This book is beautiful. At first I was a bit skeptical, but I am so glad I read this amazing novel. It takes place in the 1930's in a tiny Colorado mining town called Middle Swan. Hennie Comfort has lived there since the very beginnings of Middle Swan. She has a very interesting past and loves to tell stories. Dick and Nit Spindle, a newly married couple with a lost baby already under their belts, move into Middle Swan and Hennie takes young Nit under her wing. It is an unlikely friendship considering the age difference between younger-than-twenty Nit and eighty-something Hennie, but their love of quilting and stories joins them together. As the book goes along, we learn the stories of Hennie's past; her trials, her joys, her sorrows, her service, and all the things she learned. Hennie is dealing with a trial of her own as she helps Nit along. Hennie's daughter wants her to move to Iowa to live with her since Hennie is getting old. Hennie has no desire to leave her home and she feels obligated to stay to help Nit and she also has an unsolved problem to take care of.
This book pulls at your emotions. I teared up, smiled at Hennie's jokes, and had the desire to quilt and bake pie (which, unfortunately, I cannot do). There was only one thing that bugged me about this book: Hennie's unsolved problem. We do not learn what it is until the end, but Sandra Dallas continues to hint at it in a ridiculously obvious way, like, "Look! Hennie has a problem, and you need to be reminded every chapter!" I was able to figure out the "problem" pretty quick, but that might be my writer's background. And maybe it is the writer in me getting annoyed, but personally, I think she needed to only mention the issue half as many times as she did to make you notice it enough to wonder. Anyways, that's my rant about this book. But otherwise, it was fantastic! I would label this as an adult novel, and I highly recommend it.
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