The Wishing Thread: A Novel
Gift or curse, the magic of the Van Ripper family is in the knitting—so 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 nieces—awkwardly shy Aubrey; cynical, uptight Bitty; and free-spirit Meggie—together 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. --Margaret Flanagan