goodreads | The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society

Title: The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society
Author: Beth Pattillo
Genre: Christian fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 352
Date read: November 2009, March 2014

On the third Friday of each month, Eugenie, Ruth, Esther, Merry, and Camille meet at the Sweetgum Christian Church to enjoy the two things that connect them: a love of knitting and a passion for books. Their camaraderie remains unthreatened until Eugenie, the town librarian, introduces an angry teenager into their midst. Eugenie also gives them a new reading list: the classic novels of girlhood that young Hannah has never read. Little Women. Pollyanna. Heidi. Books that remind the women of the hopes and dreams they have lost along the way.

With each click of their needles, the ladies of the Knit Lit Society unravel their secrets: A shadow from Eugenie's past haunts the controlled order of her life. Merry's perfect little family is growing again - but will she continue to feel her identity slip away? Camille dreams of leaving town but is bound by ties of love. And the sisters, Ruth and Esther, must confront a lie they have lived with for over thirty years.

As Hannah is reluctantly stitched into their lives, the women discover the possibility that even in sleepy Sweetgum, Tennessee, they can still be the heroines of their own stories.

I read the sequel, The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love, earlier this year, not realising that it was a sequel. However, I loved it, and wanted to know what came before.

TSKLS didn't disappoint. I was just as charmed by it as I had expected to be. In atmosphere it could best be compared to Mitford, as the reader is introduced to some of the characters of a small village - none of them perfect, but all of them human.

TSKLS is not a literary masterpiece, but it's a very cozy book that's the perfect comfort read.