The Wishing Thread

August 15, 2013
The women of the Van Ripper family know that magic requires sacrifice as well as intention. What will they risk to save their own home? The Stitchery, a derelict architectural hodgepodge, replete with mansard garret and a tower, has been home to the Van Rippers since the Revolutionary War. Each generation has had a guardian, the woman who devotes her life to knitting spells for her neighbors. Aubrey, with her disturbingly iridescent blue eyes, is the new guardian. Her sisters, each holding her own secrets, have returned for the funeral of Mariah, the previous matriarch and the beloved aunt who raised them. Meggie left home at 18, becoming a nomad--but was she running away or searching for someone? Bitty arrives with her children, Carson and Nessa, but not her husband. Having rejected magic years ago, Bitty's marital problems are compounded by her daughter's instinctive interest in knitting and love for the Stitchery. But now Tappan Square and the Stitchery itself are in danger as unscrupulous developer Steve Halpern plans to raze the town and put up a shopping mall. Mariah had led the charge against Halpern, but her death--in Halpern's office, no less--leaves the residents of Tappan Square unmoored. Aubrey is too shy to take the reins; Bitty and Meggie would rather sell; and slick newcomer Mason Boss seems too good to be true. Complicating matters is handsome handyman Vic Oliveira, the only man who can look Aubrey in the eye, the only man who makes her heart race, the only man who makes her question her allegiance to the Stitchery. In Allen's debut novel, knitting becomes a rich metaphor for the power of women, of the disenfranchised, of the desperate. Steeped in the spirit of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," this bewitching tale will delight fans of magical realism.

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August 1, 2013
Gift or curse, the magic of the Van Ripper family is in the knittingso the residents of Tarrytown, New York, speculate. Van Allen knits together this pleasantly entertaining tale as easily as the Van Ripper women knit together the often unraveling threads of people's lives. When matriarch Mariah Van Ripper's death reunites her three niecesawkwardly shy Aubrey; cynical, uptight Bitty; and free-spirit Meggietogether they must decide how far they will go in order to preserve the Stitchery's secrets. The Stitchery, their ancestral home, located in contemporary Rip Van Winkle territory, has housed generations of Van Ripper women, whose gift for magic is intimately tied in with the beautiful items they knit. Casting spells on and off with the clicks of their needles, the sisters contend with the wishes and wants of others as well as their own deepest desires. Chick-lit cozy meets magical realism with inevitably warm and fuzzy results.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)