20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Make Sister's Choice YOUR Choice!, July 13, 2008
This review is from: Sister's Choice (Shenandoah Album) (Hardcover)
Just as Emilie Richards weaves her exquisite quilts, she has woven a story for everyone who loves family and especially has shared a special bond with a sister.
Set in the gorgeous Shenandoah Valley with its beautiful scenery and panoramic views, Kendra and Isaac Taylor are planning their dream house on land they own in this stunning mountain bordered property. In what would seem to be a perfect life, Richards tells how this couple have been sadly left childless even though they yearn for a family.
Jamie Dunkirk, Kendra's younger sister is in a much different situation. Due to the difference in their ages, as well as a period when Jamie had left and the two sisters were estranged for years, Kendra and Jamie have never really been close. Jamie has gone back to school and her goal is to make amends for years past and reunite with her sister. She is a single parent raising two daughters, Hannah and Alison, while also in graduate school working toward her degree in architecture. In fact, Jamie even designs the plans for Kendra and Isaac's dream home as a gift.
Just prior to Christmas, Jamie comes to visit unexpectedly and gives Kendra and Isaac another gift. Jamie offers to be a gestational surrogate so that Kendra's perfect family dream can come true. She even tells them that while she and her daughters are living in the cabin on land near the building site, she can oversee things for them. Although apprehensive because of Jamie's past, Kendra accepts the offer.
All would appear to be falling into place when handsome builder, Cash Rosslyn, enters the story. A relationship builds between Cash and Jamie, while Kendra closely monitors their activities, as she fears Jamie may suddenly revert to her old ways. However, Grace, Cash's grandmother, is very supportive of the relationship and her own special love story and talented quilting skills- a signature in the Emilie Richards' Shenandoah series- unites the three generations of women. Their bond is tested as Jamie faces a medical emergency that could tear their lives apart. Jamie is faced with the most difficult decision of her life. The choice she must make is what brings this story to its dramatic conclusion!
Each of Emilie Richards' books in the Shenandoah Album Series has a title drawn from the name of a certain pattern of a quilt square. In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Sophia and Celie take fragments of torn clothes and curtains and piece them together creating the "Sister's Choice" quilt square pattern. The strength of their relationship is comparable to that of the main characters in Sister's Choice. In the same style, stories related to other quilt patterns make up this series of excellent books. Lover's Knot and Endless Chain are just two of the charismatic stories from Emilie Richards. Fans of Jennifer Chiaverini's "Elm Creek Quilt" series, and Debbie McComber will quickly have a new favorite author once you read Sister's Choice or any of Emilie Richards' work.
Submitted by K. Haney, copyright July, 2008
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lover's Knot is better, February 11, 2009
This review is from: Sister's Choice (Shenandoah Album) (Hardcover)
Emilie Richards has such a smooth writing style, and her characters can be fascinating. I often find myself enjoying the "vintage" plotlines far more than the contemporary plot in her books. The quilting details are a big draw for me as well.
I enjoyed reading Lover's Knot so much that when I came across its sequel, Sister's Choice, I was very excited. But Sister's Choice is much weaker and not nearly as engrossing. Although its premise is very intriguing, I found that the story took a long time to get going. There isn't much conflict in the first third of the story; there isn't much doubt as to how the love story will work out; and although the protagonist is waiting to have a baby, it feels like the reader's being expected to just sit around and wait, too.
The book does get rolling after a while, however, and in the middle it's quite good. But when the complications and real story challenges arise, they seem to come too late. The vintage plotline is too sparse to fill the gaps.
Overall, I have to say that Richards assembled a cast of multi-dimensional, complex characters who ended up not having enough to do.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Heartfelt Story, July 14, 2008
This review is from: Sister's Choice (Shenandoah Album) (Hardcover)
I just finished Emilie Richards newest in her Shenandoah Quilt Series "Sister's Choice". She never disappoints me her novels are so refreshing and filled with such heart and soul and I always like how she has subplots that also get taken care of in her novels. There's a lot going on in the book but you never feel a sense of rushing through anything and there's always closure in her books.
This novel deals with two sisters and the gift that one gives to the other and what happens to their lives as they deal with that gift and with the people around them that become a focus of their lives.
A must read for all and especially for sisters.
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