A bit predictable and boring. ( )

Continuing storyline of the Elm Creek ladies. Fun, easy read. ( )

This is the eighth book in the http://www.amazon.com/Quilters-Appren... Quilter’s Apprentice) and second (http://www.amazon.com/Round-Robin-Cre... Robin) books. It reads very much like a book written to take advantage of the Christmas market – there’s some repetition of material from other books in the series. Therefore, this title could be skipped and you wouldn’t miss much in the series, but it does add some interesting background material on the main character, Sylvia, and her family history. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of making apple strudel, particularly since I am currently procrastinating on making an old family recipe German coffee cake, since the dough must rise twice and it takes all day--but it's a holiday tradition!

The story itself was at times sad (set as much of it is in the Great Depression and World War II), in the way so many ultimately uplifting Christmas stories with a “message” can be. Finding some squares and fabric scraps for a Christmas quilt in the attic, Sylvia reminisces on Christmases past at Elm Creek Manor. Her great-aunt Lucinda’s intricate Feathered Stars remind her of a Christmas in her early childhood in the 1920s, her mother Eleanor’s appliquéd holly leaves and berries of Eleanor’s last Christmas alive in the early Depression year of 1929, her older sister Claudia’s sloppy Variable Stars of another Depression year, 1934; and her own Log Cabin blocks of 1944, when a pregnant Sylvia awaited her husband’s return from World War II. The four stories are inherently sad, and revolve around Sylvia’s sibling rivalry with Claudia. The ending is predictable, and the message of the book is also its last two sentences:
At last she understood the true lesson of the Christmas Quilt, that a family was an act of creation, the piecing together of disparate fragments into one cloth—often harmonious, occasionally clashing and discordant, but sometimes unexpectedly beautiful and strong. Without contrast there was no pattern, as Great-Aunt Lucinda had taught her long ago, and each piece, whether finest silk or faded cotton, would endure if sewn fast to the others with strong seams—bonds of love and loyalty, tradition and faith.

Once again the narrator, actress Christina Moore, with over 100 audiobooks to her credit, does an excellent job. She pitches her voice differently for male, female, and child characters. And again, this audiobook identifies the beginning and end of each of its CDs (a contrasting male voice), so one can avoid accidental repetition. ( )

WMQG# F-1126

I love this series of books. BUT this one didn't hold my attention like the others. Probably because the only thing different was what actually happened to the Christmas star. If you have read the first Elm Creek novels most everything (almost) is explained in them & rehashed here. ( )