Knit the Season

October 1, 2009
Bland and predictable third installment of the Friday Night Knitting Club series (Knit Two, 2008, etc.).

Georgia, founder and proprietor of Walker& Daughter yarn shop, died in the first novel, leaving daughter Dakota to be raised by formerly absentee father James and the knitting club stalwarts. Now 21-year-old Dakota is in culinary school and dreams of turning Walker& Daughter (run by Peri, when she's not designing handbags) into a knitting caf. While making plans for this transition, Dakota wants everything to stay the same, but everything is changing. Octogenarian Anita is finally marrying her boyfriend, despite her wormy son Nathan's attempts to break them up. Darwin and Lucie are even more involved with their children. Catherine is going to marry Marco and maybe move to Italy. Peri has been asked by a couture label to move to Paris and run their knit division. And James has finally met a woman he's serious about. This is all too much for Dakota, who deeply feels Georgia's absence and associates change with loss. Maybe Christmas abroad will cheer her up. She relinquishes an important internship to travel with James, Georgia's parents and brother to visit her great-grandmother on a farm in Scotland. There Dakota learns important life lessons: Family is important, time is precious, unpleasant memories can be good and other homilies more appropriate to YA lit. Jacobs' prose is pleasant, and she smoothly juggles all the story lines, but there's just not much going on here. Numerous mentions of woolen goods neither improve the plotting nor make the characters more endearing.

A quick stroll through familiar emotional territory rather than the epic voyage of self-discovery the author seems to have intended.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 1, 2009
In this holiday special, friends brought together by a Manhattan knitting shop continue to gather for their weekly knitting sessions, this time focusing on Dakota, the young daughter of the shop's original owner. Dakota is running the shop and attending culinary school, intending to revamp the shop as a knitting caf. Feeling overwhelmed, she decides to visit her grandmother in Scotland to gain some perspective and learns a lot about her late mother in the process. Word of mouth was key to the success of the first two books ("The Friday Night Knitting Club, Knit Two"), and a major motion picture is in the works. Expect demand. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 7/09.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2009
The third entry in Jacobs Friday Night Knitting Club series arrives just in time for the holidays as the ladies of the club get into the holiday spirit. After many delayscourtesy of her selfish grown son, Nathanspry octogenarian Anita is finally preparing to wed her longtime boyfriend, Marty, in a New Years Day ceremony. Catherine, 45, is happily dating a handsome Italian widower. She wants to take things slowly, until it seems as though he doesnt have any immediate plans to propose to her. And Dakota Walker, the 21-year-old daughter of the late Georgia, who started the club, is struggling with her grief and a big decision: Should she accept a prestigious internship at a swanky New York hotel or spend the holidays with her family in Scotland? Readers who anticipate comforting, heartwarming stories from Jacobs series will not be disappointed: curling up with a Friday Night Knitting Club novel is like visiting with old friends. Although some favorite characters, such as the spirited KC and type-A Darwin, take a backseat here, this holiday entry is sure to please fans and leave them hungry for the next installment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)