Customer Reviews

The Lost Quilter (Elm Creek Quilts Novels)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

During the off season, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson and some of her Elm Creek quilt camp staffers find a small stack of letters stuck in the locked drawer of an old desk. The letters date to the late 1800s and appear to be related to the story brought forth in "The Runaway Quilt," which revealed that a slave named Joanna was once harbored at the Bergstrom estate, just before the Civil War erupted. Sylvia would love to investigate the history behind the letters, but she feels that she's not a good enough researcher. And Summer Sullivan isn't around to help with the project. She's off in Chicago, going to grad school.

In the meantime, we readers are magically transported to 1859, and the day when Joanna is recaptured by slavers and is marched back on foot from Pennsylvania to Virginia. From that point on, the stage is all hers. What we learned in the previous book was merely a vignette, a tiny portion of Joanna's life story. Here, we're exposed to it all. We follow her back to the plantation she came from. We find out how and why Joanna began to quilt herself. We experience her days, both before and after her journey to central Pennsylvania. It's easy for us to like Joanna and champion her cause; and it's easy to want only good things to happen to her. But here it is her fate to be a slave in Virginia and then later, in South Carolina. Imagine facing such difficult times that you can find comfort only in a colleague's basic advice to just "Keep breathin'." Yikes.

As with any slave narrative, even a fictitious one, some of the scenes are heart-breaking at the very least and utterly reprehensible at the most. And yet, we need to be reminded of that part of our American past. We also need to make an international jump and acknowledge that somewhere else on the planet right now, other folks (both men and women) are being treated as inhumanely as African Americans were in the Confederate South in the mid-1800s. It's an unfortunate fact that cannot help but crop up in the back of the readers' minds, while their fingers continue to turn these pages.

Will Summer Sullivan be able to present Sylvia with ANY of Joanna's history merely through official documentation? Or will we readers now know more than Sylvia and the Elm Creek characters themselves ever will? That possibility in and of itself makes for an interesting dilemma.

Fans may want to back up and first re-read "The Runaway Quilt" so that the details are fresh in their minds for this continuation of the story. And yet, "The Lost Quilter" is a powerful, stand-alone read in its own right. Ms. Chiaverini has woven a fabric of historical fiction that is as compelling as any offered to us by veteran storyteller John Jakes.

To diehard readers who may yearn for an Elm Creek book that concentrates on the familiar, contemporary characters; and to those who may ask, "What does history have to do with quilts, anyway?" one can only say, Read the book. Read the book, and you will know why this story is an important one.

I've read the Elm Creek books and, with few exceptions, I've liked them all. The Lost Quilter picks up the story of Joanna, the runaway slave from The Runaway Quilt. As with the other Elm Creek books, this one begins with Sylvia discovering a new fact about her family or their quilting. While the beginning and end of the book are about Sylvia trying to find out information about Joanna, the book itself is, Joanna's story.

After her son was born at the Bergstrom farm, Joanna was recaptured and returned to her master in Virginia. She took with her a desire to find her son, her newly found ability to read and her mastery with the needle. Her master sells her to his brother in South Carolina and Joanna begins a new life, finding friends and love. Joanna dreams of returning to Elm Creek and she pieces a quilt, reminiscent of the underground railroad quilts. In it she sews the landmarks she remembers, in hopes that someday it will guide her back to Elm Creek.

Joanna's strength sees her through difficulties with selfish mistresses and the Civil War, and the legacy she leaves behind will finally answer some of Sylvia's questions.

I was prepared to not like this book. I think that, at some point, a story needs to end. While I do think Jennifer Chiaverini runs the risk of weakening a strong story if she insists on giving every possible character their own book, I enjoyed this one. Slave narratives have always fascinated me, and reading the story from Joanna's viewpoint was compelling.

An easy, interesting read.

Whew- thank goodness Jennifer Chiaverini is back! I agree that this is one of her better books in a few years. "The Quilter's Kitchen" was a complete waste of time, paper and money. But a true story and set of characters is developed for this book. It's still a little short for my tastes, but definitely more than a novella. I miss the original Elm Creek Quilters but I understand that their stories may be done. I would even welcome new stories about the new hires, as long as they were of the same quality as the first books. I think fans of the series will be pleased by this latest in the series.

Master Quilter Sylvia Bergstrom Compson cherishes her special an antique quilt with an incredible history. Some call it "Birds in the Air" based on the design; others call it the "Runaway Quilt" after the runaway slave who sewed it; and finally "the Elm Creek Quilt" where Joanna the slave reached having ridden the Underground Railroad in 1859.

Slave catchers caught Joanna and brought her back to her owner, Josiah Chester in Virginia, but she left behind with the Bergstrom family, her son. Hans and Anneke Bergstrom and Aunt Gerda raised the child as their own; concealing his true identity. In the present Sylvia searches Gerda's diary and Joanna's quilt for clues as to the identity of the runaway slave who stitched a masterpiece.

The best Elm Creeks Quilt tale in years, THE LOST QUILTER answers many of the questions raised in THE RUNAWAY QUILT. The story of Joanna to include her punishment following her recapture makes for a fresh tale with much of her early saga sewed into the quilt. Fans of the series will relish Joanna's tale of bondage and liberty; as she as THE LOST QUILTER wants the freedom for her and her loved ones to soar like the birds in the air of THE RUNAWAY QUILT.

Harriet Klausner

This is the continuing story begun in "The Runaway Quilt" of Johanna, a runaway slave who moved through the underground railroad finally arriving at Elm Creek Farm in Pennsylvania. At the beginning of this book, Sylvia Bergstrom, decendant of the family that hid Johanna during her stay, finds letters hidden in a drawer at the manor which re-sparks her interest in finding out what happened to Johanna after she left the farm. Only the beginning and the end of the book are set at Elm Creek Manor in the present time, with the vast majority of it detailing Johanna's heartwrenching story. We pick up Johanna's story during her stay at Elm Creek and follow along, in great detail, her life from 1859 until about 1863 with an epilogue closing the book. This epilogue answers all the questions about her life after that. One of the best ways I can describe this book is to say it is "Gone with the Wind" told from the perspective of the household slave.

The book is well written and, at times, very difficult to read. If anyone harbors romantic notions of the greatness of the south during this period, it definitely will shatter that illusion. You are allowed to walk in Johanna's shoes and feel all the pain and frustation of having no control over anything in your life -- where you live, who you marry, what you eat and wear, and what happens to your children. There are a few scenes that will just tear your heart out due to the brutal and unsensitive treatment of the slaves in this story. The characters are well-drawn and the story just sucks the reader in.

While I missed all the characters resident (and sometimes assunder) at Elm Creek Manor, I truly enjoyed this book -- well worth a read.

I pre-ordered this book last August, as last summer I read the entire Elk Creek Quilt book series, and enjoyed every one of them. However, this one made me angry, angry at the injustices that the African-Americans endured in the "land of the free." This book moved my heart and spirit and I felt like I was standing on the side watching the whole tale unfold. Even though the characters are fictional, similar events occurred. When reading local history where I live in Northeastern Pennsylvania, a main street a block from my home, an incident occurred in the 1800's. A street I have walked many times in my lifetime, a runaway slave was taken and thrown on a buckboard and taken back to his owner. I agree with the the previous two reviews, it is the best of the Elm Creek book series.

I was initially disappointed that this story was set in the 19th century, but it turned out to be one of my favorites in the series. The Lost Quilter tells the story of Joanna, the slave who was captured at Elm Creek in one of the earlier installments of the series.

Joanna's tale is riveting. Since she is a slave, always trying to escape and avoid brutal punishment, the stakes are high and suspense is constant. Joanna is very well-developed...she felt like someone I know. While I was doing other things, I kept wondering what would happen next.

So I do hope that the next quilter's book is set in contemporary times, but I enjoyed this one very much.

Wow. Powerful read. I hated to see it end. No sugar coating in this book.It was written,I'm sure,very much as times were. It made me question my own self as a human being. So if you can't handle those kind of truths or questions about one's self this book is not for you.

This is the 14th book in the Elm Creek Quilts series and is one of the historical novels. After Sylvia finds some letters in a desk drawer that had been stuck shut, she begins to further investigate what happened to the runaway slave Joanna that had been taken care of by some of her ancestors. This story picks up after the events in The Runaway Quilt. We find that Joanna was captured and returned her former master, who then sells her to his brother in South Carolina. Joanna suffers through the transport with other slaves and arrives at her new home. Her skills as a seamstress allow her to work in the house. She eventually makes friends and finds love, but her world is torn apart when she ends up being a bridal present to the master's daughter. The book portrays an intriguing look at the life of a slave and we see Joanna's courage as she struggles to survive and thrive before and during the Civil War.

I am currently reading book 8 in this series. These are warm, wonderful stories. While quilting is the central venue, these are not books about sewing. They are about life, love, loss, laughter, history, geneology, education, motherhood, and apple strudel. I cannot put one down once I have read the first page. I feel a part of each circle. My ancestors were strong, capable, amazing women and men, who pioneered on the Kansas prairie and paved the way for all of us. Thank you for sharing this tremendous assembly with us, Jennifer.