Customer Reviews

Prayers for Sale

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Hennie Comfort knows she's getting old--she's 86--but she doesn't want to leave her mountain home of Middle Swan, Colorado, to go live with her daughter in Iowa. Still, there comes a time when Hennie figures she must face the facts and give in to her daughter's pleadings, so she sets the end of the year 1936 as the time when she'll begrudgingly move. But there's lots to be done in the months left, including befriending the new young neighbor, Nit Spindle, and working through some things Hennie's managed to set aside for many years. Thus kicks off Sandra Dallas's new novel, Prayers For Sale; sit back and let the story wash over you as the pages turn themselves.

Hennie's a real character, and a mainstay of the town since she came out seventy years before to marry Jake Comfort, sight unseen. Hennie's lifelong passion has been quilting, and just as she stitches quilts throughout the book, her own story unravels for Nit as she shares it with the lonely young woman. Hennie's figured out quite a bit about people in her long life, but she's still got a few things left to tend to before she leaves her home, and the friendship she develops with the much younger woman is the basis for the flashbacks into Hennie's life. The bond created between the two women is strong; centered around children both have lost, they find they can share each other's burdens over a quilting frame. Hennie doesn't actually offer prayers for sale, however; her prayers are frequent and fervent and she intervenes when necessary.

This is such a delightful tale with such strong, well-written characters that I hated to see it end. I could easily picture Hennie's dry sense of humor and her good will in trying to bring Nit into the town's social circle. In my mind's eye, I could see Hennie telling the stories as she worked over her "piecings", and I felt the same impact from them that Nit was experiencing. The ending is a bit of a surprise--not unwelcome, but surprising nonetheless. I was left smiling, knowing I will hold these dear people with me for a very long time. Highly recommended.

Comfort fiction, that's what I'd have to call it, so appropriate since the main character is named Hennie Comfort (formerly Ila Mae Stubbs Lloyd, but there's lots of name changing in this book!).

PRAYERS FOR SALE is not chick lit, romance, mystery (although there are a couple of foreshadowings and improbable surprises), definitely not action/adventure: Historical fiction, engaging and comforting, like homemade mac n' cheese or chicken pot pie. PRAYERS FOR SALE reminds me of a more adult version of Little House on the Prairie; although the story ends in 1936, during the Great Depression, it begins in 1864 and includes wagon trains, hardship, log cabins and subsistence living in a remote gold mining camp high in the mountains of Colorado.

Hennie Comfort is 86 years old and facing tough decisions about her life in Middle Swan, Colorado. Her adult daughter wants Hennie to come down off the mountain and live comfortably with her in Iowa. Mae wants to take care of her aging mother and to know that she is safe:

"Mae was right, Hennie admitted to herself. If she fell, the snow would cover her up, and nobody would know where she was until she melted out in the spring."

But Hennie has lived in Middle Swan for 70 years, since she came to the camp from White Pigeon, Tennessee, essentially a mail-order bride (heck of a blind date!) at the age of 16, after the loss of her young husband and baby daughter during the last days of the Civil War. (She married for love the first time at age 14 and was a widow and bereft young mother at 15.) Hennie doesn't want to leave her mountain life or her memories and stories.

A small sign on her fence, long-forgotten, brings 17-year-old Nit Spindle to Hennie's door: Prayers For Sale. Nit is new to town and suffering her own heartache after losing her baby at birth on the journey to Colorado from Kentucky. Nit asks Hennie to pray for her baby. Hennie takes to Nit and decides the girl needs her help to settle into the community and survive as a mountain woman, the wife of a dredge gold miner. A love for quilting and storytelling brings the two women together.

PRAYERS FOR SALE is a wonderful story about friendship and community, although not much happens in the present. Secrets hinted at the beginning (about Hennie's daughter Mae and Hennie's last unresolved secret), later revealed are anti-climactic and seem farfetched coincidences. The strength of this book is in the stories Hennie tells about the past, her own and others: tales of colorful characters and tragedy, lady luck and fallen ladies, mining, hardship, fortune and loss.

PRAYERS FOR SALE is comfort fiction, to be savored and enjoyed.

[...]

This is one of those "comfortable books" a book that draws you in, encourages you to sit a spell and totally immerse yourself in the story. The characters in this small mountain town in Colorado, Hennie, Nit, Dick, Tom, Monalisa and others are introduced by Sandra Dallas in a way that makes you feel that you could live right next door. This little mining town is bitterly cold more than half the year, and the dredge mining has taken it's toll, but the characters are warm and complex.

The novel takes place in 1936 during the Depression and is in the folksy local language of that time. The way she writes makes you just want to snuggle in and become part of this town and era, learning about the characters and their secrets. Most of this is done through Hennie, age 86 and her stories that she tells to Nit, a 17 year old young wife who has recently moved to the town with her husband for a job. The area can be unforgiving with it's cold winters, constant noise of the dredges and it's tight knit community, but Hennie takes an instant liking to Nit and feels protective toward her.

I hated to see this book end. It was a different sort of book than those I usually read, but I will look for Sandra Dallas's other books after reading this one.

I find it amazing that a book written about the gritty hardships endured by those who chose to follow the gold can be so uplifting and witty. Sandra Dallas wrote about a bleak and depressing subject in such a way that the reader comes away better for the reading of it. We are talking about pain and loss such as we in this modern age very rarely (thankfully) experience. And her characters survive and keep going, in spite of their pain. The primary character, Hennie Comfort, may be 86; but, she is filled with more life than many of my contemporaries. Read this book. It is good for your soul.

Hennie Comfort, now in her 80's, has lived most of her life in the Colorado mining town of Middle Swan, at over 10,000 feet, high in the Rockies. She loves her town, and her snug cabin, and she loves to tell stories and to quilt. When young Nit Spindle comes to Middle Swan, friendless and isolated except for her husband, Hennie has a new outlet for storytelling.

The stories Hennie tells over her quilting are true to life, covering her early days during the civil war in Tennessee and her sixty years since in the mining town. They are beautifully told, but I found them hard to hear, often. So much tragedy. So much wasted promise. It is good to remember how much more difficult life used to be, and how privileged we are today, but it is not easy reading. It took me several months to finish, though I am glad that I did.

Hennie and Nit's friendship, however, is only for the good, bringing happier times to both of them. As Hennie contemplates leaving her beloved Middle Swan to 'go below' to her daughter in Iowa, the opportunity to bequeath some of her heritage to Nit is welcome.

Hennie is a strong and interesting protagonist, and I feel confident she'll be going strong well past 100.

I wanted to love this book, because I thoroughly enjoyed one of Sandra Dallas' previous books, "The Diary of Mattie Spenser." But I just couldn't get into it. I tried. I started reading it, then put it aside and read another book. Then I tried it again and still couldn't get into it.

Unfortunately, "Prayers for Sale" just never felt real to me, beginning with the first few sentences where we are introduced to the main character with the overly precious name of Hennie Comfort. I usually enjoy this type of "homey" writing very much, but the writing here felt as forced as that character's name, i.e., "We were rightly as close as twins," and "Your talk is pleasing to me." As much as I tried, I couldn't imagine anyone talking this way except in a script. It felt like stilted playacting to me.

At times it felt juvenile, too, with the phrasing and rhythm of a tween or young adult novel. It felt carefully bright and earnest, like a great elementary school teacher telling her students a story.

Sorry for the poor review. It's certainly good subject matter--I love Depression era stories--but I honestly found my interest wandering all over the place before I finally gave up after more than a quarter of the way into the book.

This is the fourth novel that I've read by Sandra Dallas. All of her books were enjoyable, but this is my favorite!

In PRAYERS FOR SALE, Hennie Comfort is a widow, who at the age of 86, has to make a drastic change in her life. Her daughter has convinced her that it's time to leave Middle Swan, Colorado and move across country to live with her. As Hennie starts to prepare herself for the move, she meets a young woman, Nit Spindle, who has just moved to the mining town of Middle Swan. The young woman strikes a cord of warmth in Hennie and they become close friends. She decides to help Nit understand her new life and learn the history of the area.

The two seem to share many things, including a love of quilting. There visits are intertwined with the quilts they are making. Through the telling of many old stories, Hennie prepares herself for leaving her beloved home in the Colorado mountains. She wants the stories of her 86 years of life experiences to be remembered and passed on. The stories are shared with Nit who, herself has recently experienced the loss of her baby and is in need of the comfort that she finds with Hennie.

This story is not to be missed!

Nothing earth-shattering, just an 86 yr old mountain woman sharing stories and memories with a 17-yr old newcomer to their mountain Colorado town in the days of the depression. It was pleasant enough, but I have read all of Dallas other works and this is my least favorite. Quilters will like it, as many of her books center around the friendships made by women quilting together, however, if you have not read her before start with The Chili Queen or with Alice's Tulips, both superior to this one.

A reminder for you browsers: when you click on your opinion of my review, it should not be based on whether you agree with me or not. A helpful review is one that assists you in deciding whether or not to read the particular book addressed in the review.

I like historical fiction and have read novels before set in places like Appalachia. I had never read anything by this author before, and was intrigued by the description.

I have found that if a book doesn't capture my interest by about the half way point, I will keep tossing it aside. That is exactly what happened with this novel. I would read a little, get bored, toss it aside, and pick it up again.

This novel is the story of a 86 year old woman from a small town in the mountains of Kentucky. She befriends a young bride and shares her life story. Honestly, I found most of the stories in this book to be pretty dull. I didn't find myself anxiously turning pages. Also, the Kentucky mountain dialect got really annoying after while. A little of it here and there I can tolerate, but I think this the case of this book, it was very overused.

I also found the novel to be very slow moving. The stories the old woman tells seem so long and drawn out. What could be said in a couple paragraphs drags out for pages. I didn't feel like I knew these characters very well at all. They just didn't come alive for me. I really did try to finish this book, but in the end, I just couldn't do it.

I did find some beautiful writing in this book, but to me, that just didn't make up for the books other flaws. I don't think I will be reading anymore books by this author.

Prayers for Sale is a newer Novel written by Sandra Dallas, whom you may recognise as the author of The Persian Pickle Club.

Prayers for Sale is written across a sign by the front gate of Hennie Comforts home. Prayers for Sale? Do you really buy prayers? Does Hennie really charge people to pray for them? No Hennie does not sell prayers. The sign was made as a joke by Hennie's husband when Hennie told him she had so much goodness in her life that their is nothing left for her to pray about so she should sell her prayers.

It is over this Sign on a cold winter day back in 1836 that 19 year old Nit Spindler, who is considering spending the last nickel she has for a prayer, meets 86 year old Hennie Comfort.

Seeing this young girl outside her door looking so sad Hennie invites Nit in for a cup of coffee. As they sit and chat Hennie learns about the sadness in Nit's eyes. Hennie can't help but see how Nit is so much like she was in her younger days. Because of all the similarities in their lives Hennie, a natural story teller and quilter develops the desire to nurture and guide Nit, a newlywed who has just moved to Middle Sawn and has no friends in the isolated town. This friendship is bonded over afternoons of coffee and quilting or walks in the mountains.

Hennie's time in Middle Sawn is coming to and end. Her daughter Mae wants her mom to move from the hard life she has in the mining town to the city and live with her. Hennie realizes that Nit has the abilities to also be a great story and tells her many stories of the mountain mining area that she hopes Nit will pass on over the years.

As you listen to Hennie tell stories over many dinners she shares with Tom Early and Nit and Dick Spindle you can't help but hear the stories told in her back woods accent.

Towards the end of the book their stories take a couple surprise turns that I shall not reveal. I suggest you read the book and learn of them yourself. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.