Julia Merchaud’s beloved historical drama, “A Patchwork Life,” revived her acting career. But her happiness turns to dismay when she learns that the hit show will have only one more season. Inspiration comes after a conversation with Summer Sullivan, one of the expert quilters who helped Julia prepare for her role. When Summer confides that Elm Creek Quilt Camp is in financial trouble, Julia concocts a brilliant plan that will help the Elm Creek Quilters and herself. Julia sets about persuading the cast and crew to join her for what she promises will be a marvelous week at a luxurious 19th-century mansion. Secretly, she hopes the bonding experience will convince them to sign on for another few seasons. But after several joyful days of quilting and camaraderie, Julia’s scheme takes an unexpected turn.

As Sylvia Bergstrom Compson contends with financial setbacks at Elm Creek Quilt Camp, her friend and colleague Summer Sullivan, curator of the Waterford Historical Society’s quilt gallery, asks a special favor. When Sylvia and her elder sister were teenagers, they entered a quilt in the Sears National Quilt Contest for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition. The unprecedented competition offered its 25,000 participants the opportunity for artistic expression, with the finalists’ quilts prominently displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair. If Sylvia lent the Bergstrom sisters’ World’s Fair Quilt to Summer’s exhibit, it would illuminate a forgotten chapter of women’s history during the difficult years of the Great Depression. Sylvia grants Summer’s request, but with misgivings. The fragile antique requires careful cleaning and repair --- and not all of the memories it evokes are pleasant.

Summer Sullivan, the youngest founding member of Elm Creek Quilts, has spent the last two years pursuing a master’s degree in history at the University of Chicago. Her unexpected return home to the celebrated quilter’s retreat is met with delight but also concern from her mother, Gwen; her best friend, Sarah; master quilter Sylvia; and her other colleagues. Stymied by writer’s block, Summer hasn’t finished her thesis, and she can’t graduate until she does. She finds welcome distraction in organizing an exhibit of antique quilts as a fundraiser to renovate Union Hall, the 1863 Greek Revival headquarters of the Waterford Historical Society. But Summer’s research uncovers startling facts about Waterford’s past, prompting unsettling questions about racism, economic injustice and political corruption within their community, past and present.

Early in the Great War, Britain’s munitions factories struggled to produce the weapons their troops desperately needed in their fight against the Central Powers. Facing a shortage of civilian men, factory owners appealed to women to step up and help their nation build bombs. “Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun” declared the recruitment posters, and thousands of young women responded to the call. The jobs were grueling --- 12-hour shifts, six days a week --- and dangerous. Yet for many “munitionettes,” as they were fondly known, war work was also meaningful and exciting. In CANARY GIRLS, Jennifer Chiaverini sheds light on the munitionettes and their contributions to the war effort through both their essential work and play.

In June 1917, General John Pershing arrived in France to establish American forces in Europe. He immediately found himself unable to communicate with troops in the field. Pershing needed operators who could swiftly and accurately connect multiple calls, speak fluent French and English, remain steady under fire, and be utterly discreet. At the time, nearly all well-trained American telephone operators were women --- but women were not permitted to enlist, or even to vote in most states. Nevertheless, the U.S. Army Signal Corps promptly began recruiting them. More than 7,600 women responded; they served with honor and played an essential role in achieving the Allied victory. Their story has never been the focus of a novel…until now.

Twenty-five-year-old Alice Paul returns to her native New Jersey after several years on the front lines of the suffrage movement in Great Britain. Nine states have already granted women voting rights, but only a constitutional amendment will secure the vote for all. To inspire support for the campaign, Alice organizes a magnificent procession down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, the day before the inauguration of President-elect Woodrow Wilson, a firm anti-suffragist. On March 3, 1913, the glorious march commences, but negligent police allow vast crowds of belligerent men to block the parade route --- jeering, shouting threats, assaulting the marchers --- endangering not only the success of the demonstration but the women’s very lives.

In May 1875, Elizabeth Todd Edwards reels from news that her younger sister Mary, former First Lady and widow of President Abraham Lincoln, has attempted suicide. Mary’s shocking act followed legal proceedings arranged by her eldest and only surviving son that declared her legally insane. Although they have long been estranged, Elizabeth knows Mary’s tenuous mental health has deteriorated through decades of trauma and loss. Yet is her suicide attempt truly the impulse of a deranged mind, or the desperate act of a sane woman terrified to be committed to an asylum? And --- if her sisters can put past grievances aside --- is their love powerful enough to save her?

Just weeks before Christmas, severe wintry weather damages the church hall hosting the Christmas Boutique --- an annual sale of handcrafted gifts and baked goods that supports the county food pantry. Determined to save the fundraiser, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson offers to hold the event at Elm Creek Manor, her ancestral family estate and summertime home to Elm Creek Quilt Camp. In the spirit of the season, Sylvia and the Elm Creek Quilters begin setting up market booths in the ballroom and decking the halls with beautiful hand-made holiday quilts. Each of the quilters chooses a favorite quilt to display, a special creation evoking memories of holidays past and dreams of Christmases yet to come.

After Wisconsin graduate student Mildred Fish marries brilliant German economist Arvid Harnack, she accompanies him to his German homeland, where a promising future awaits. In the thriving intellectual culture of 1930s Berlin, the newlyweds create a rich new life filled with love, friendships and rewarding work --- but the rise of a malevolent new political faction inexorably changes their fate. As Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party wield violence and lies to seize power, Mildred, Arvid and their friends resolve to resist. For years, Mildred’s network stealthily fights to bring down the Third Reich from within. But when Nazi radio operatives detect an errant Russian signal, the Harnack resistance cell is exposed, with fatal consequences.

The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada Byron King was destined for fame long before her birth. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada’s mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of imagination --- or worse yet, passion or poetry --- is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes. When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize that her delightful new friendship with inventor Charles Babbage will shape her destiny.

The subject of more than a century of scholarship, speculation and even obsession, John Wilkes Booth is often portrayed as a shadowy figure: a violent loner whose single murderous act made him the most hated man in America. Lost to history until now is the story of the four women whom he loved and who loved him in return: Mary Ann, the steadfast matriarch of the Booth family; Asia, his loyal sister and confidante; Lucy Lambert Hale, the senator’s daughter who adored Booth yet tragically misunderstood the intensity of his wrath; and Mary Surratt, the Confederate widow entrusted with the secrets of his vengeful plot.

Jennifer Chiaverini’s resonant and heartfelt novel chronicles the events of 1863, when the peace and contentment of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s family circle was suddenly, tragically broken, cutting even deeper than the privations of wartime. Through the pain of profound loss and hardship, Longfellow’s patriotism never failed, nor did the power of his language. “Christmas Bells,” the poem he wrote that holiday, lives on, spoken as verse and sung as a hymn.
 

In 1844, shy Missouri belle Julia Dent met Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, a brilliant horseman and reluctant soldier. The two fell deeply in love, but the groom’s abolitionist family refused to attend their wedding ceremony. Despite her new husband’s objections, Julia kept as her slave another Julia, known as Jule. Both women risked certain danger as they traveled to and from the field of war. Though Julia secretly taught Jule how to read, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation inspired Jule to make a daring bid for freedom. 

When charming Kate Chase Sprague accompanied her father, Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase, to Washington, D.C. in 1861, she found that, rather than becoming a friend and compatriot of the First Lady's as she had anticipated, she immediately became embroiled in a long-lasting, notorious rivalry with Mrs. Lincoln due to the First Lady's jealousy of her youth, beauty and social skills.

Surrounded by rabid Confederate supporters and soldiers in her native Virginia in 1861, abolitionist  Elizabeth Van Lew risks everything she holds dear to help the Union and its troops through covert operations and smuggled messages in this fascinating novel that tells the tale of one of America's bravest women.

As the nation grapples with Prohibition, an act of violence shatters Rosa Barclay's resolve to maintain her family’s increasingly dangerous existence in Southern California. She flees with the children to the mesa where she last saw her beloved mother alive.

Jennifer Chiaverini presents a stunning account of the friendship that blossomed between Mary Todd Lincoln and her seamstress, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Keckley, a former slave who gained her professional reputation in Washington, D.C. by outfitting the city’s elite. Keckley made history by sewing for the First Lady within the White House, a trusted witness to many private moments between the President and his wife.

At Elm Creek Manor, the week after Thanksgiving is “Quiltsgiving,” a time to commence a season of generosity. From near and far, quilters and aspiring quilters gather for a special winter session of quilt camp. Each quilter, ever mindful that many of her neighbors, friends and family members are struggling through difficult times, uses her creative gifts to alleviate their collective burden.

In 1862, the men of Water's Ford, Pennsylvania, rally to President Lincoln's call while Dorothea Granger marshals her friends to "wield their needles for the Union." As their men struggle on the battlefield, the women forge a new independence that will forever change Elm Creek Valley.

Sarah McClure arrived at Elm Creek Manor as a newlywed, never suspecting that her quilting lessons with master quilter Sylvia Bergstrom Compson would inspire the successful and enduring business Elm Creek Quilts, whose members have nurtured a circle of friendship spanning generations. THE WEDDING QUILT opens as the wedding day of Sarah's daughter Caroline approaches.

The Elm Creek Quilters gather every holiday season to stitch holiday gifts for loved ones. Inspired to revive a lost family tradition, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson Cooper invites her friends to sew quilt blocks that represent their own unique stories of gratitude and love.

This ninth Elm Creek Quilts novel continues the series with a tribute to matriarch Sylvia Compson, who surprised her fellow quilters by marrying her longtime sweetheart on a recent holiday. Eager to honor their favorite Master Quilter, the Elm Creek Quilters hasten to stitch a bridal quilt for the newlyweds. Until the time comes to unveil the surprise gift, Sylvia will be the one in the dark.