The Oysterville Sewing Circle
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
"Stitched together with love, this is a story just waiting for your favorite reading chair. With her signature style and skill, Susan Wiggs delivers an intricate patchwork of old wounds and new beginnings, romance and the healing power of friendship, wrapped in a lovely little community that's hiding a few secrets of its own." -- Lisa Wingate, New York Times Bestselling author of Before We Were Yours The #1 New York Times bestselling author brings us her most ambitious and provocative work yet--a searing and timely novel that explores the most volatile issue of our time--domestic violence. At the break of dawn, Caroline Shelby rolls into Oysterville, Washington, a tiny hamlet at the edge of the raging Pacific. She's come home. Home to a place she thought she'd left forever, home of her heart and memories, but not her future. Ten years ago, Caroline launched a career in the glamorous fashion world of Manhattan. But her success in New York imploded on a wave of scandal and tragedy, forcing her to flee to the only safe place she knows. And in the backseat of Caroline's car are two children who were orphaned in a single chilling moment--five-year-old Addie and six-year-old Flick. She's now their legal guardian--a role she's not sure she's ready for. But the Oysterville she left behind has changed. Her siblings have their own complicated lives and her aging parents are hoping to pass on their thriving seafood restaurant to the next generation. And there's Will Jensen, a decorated Navy SEAL who's also returned home after being wounded overseas. Will and Caroline were forever friends as children, with the promise of something more . . . until he fell in love with Sierra, Caroline's best friend and the most beautiful girl in town. With her modeling jobs drying up, Sierra, too, is on the cusp of reinventing herself. Caroline returns to her favorite place: the sewing shop owned by Mrs. Lindy Bloom, the woman who inspired her and taught her to sew. There she discovers that even in an idyllic beach town, there are women living with the deepest of secrets. Thus begins the Oysterville Sewing Circle--where women can join forces to support each other through the troubles they keep hidden. Yet just as Caroline regains her creativity and fighting spirit, and the children begin to heal from their loss, an unexpected challenge tests her courage and her heart. This time, though, Caroline is not going to run away. She's going to stand and fight for everything--and everyone--she loves.
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3.5 stars. Thank goodness Susan Wiggs is still writing Women's Fiction (several of my favorite authors have apparently abandoned the genre for edgy thrillers), although The Oysterville Sewing Circle is weakened by too much plot and a subtle anti-feminist undertone. There's an awful lot to cover in less than 400 pages, including Caroline's attempt to reclaim her fashion career after a top designer steals her ideas, her sudden thrust into parenting two orphaned, traumatized children that causes her to return home after years of self-exile, and her attempts to start a domestic abuse survivor support group. Plus there's a romance shoehorned in there as well. The result is that most of the plots don't get the attention they deserve. I especially would have appreciated reading more about little Flick and Addie's adjustment to their new lives (they seemed remarkably resilient for two children who have moved to a strange new place with a woman they barely know after their mother dies suddenly), and about the Oysterville Sewing Circle participants. Instead, the novel focuses more on the love story between Caroline and her childhood friend Will, who is married to her best friend Sierra when Caroline arrives back home. Flashback scenes show how Will and Caroline met and bonded when they were barely teenagers, although their friendship transformed several years later when Sierra moved to town, and she and Will started dating. Within a few chapters of the current story, Will and Sierra's marriage is in trouble, then Sierra is gone and Will and Caroline are together. Despite the many years they knew each other it seems to happen within just a few pages. But the reader is supposed to be okay with that because Sierra didn't want kids and had an abortion, so she doesn't deserve to be happy. Oh, Wiggs says all the right things about a woman's right to choose, but when it comes down to it, Caroline who loves children gets the HEA, and Sierra who doesn't is miserable and bitter (but professionally successful, so there is that).The domestic violence issues are presented honestly and for those who might not know anything about the dynamics it's an important topic to include. This isn't my favorite Susan Wiggs novel (that's probably [b:The Apple Orchard 16074553 The Apple Orchard (Bella Vista Chronicles, #1) Susan Wiggs https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388276273s/16074553.jpg 18171290]), but it is still a quick rewarding (and somewhat frustrating) read. ARC received from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
