The Runaway Quilt

The Runaway Quilt
by: Jennifer Chiaverini
An Elm Creek Quilts Novel, book four

You know I love themed series in my books, and I love to quilt, so this was a natural series for me to pick up. The series is by Jennifer Chiaverini and is centered around quiliting, along with life.

This book starts when Sylvia decides to look for the "proof" that her Aunt Lucindia always said was in the attic that the family was a station on the Underground Railround in the Civil War. Upon looking in the attic, Sylvia finds the trunk Aunt Lucindia told her was there, but the proof is not what she expected. In the trunk are three quilts and a journal.

Sylvia's quest to find this information was prompted by meeting a lady at a Quilt Conference who had a family quilt with a picture of Elm Creek stiched into the quilt, but she was from the south, and her family owned slaves, and Sylvia was sure her family helped slaves, so how could they be related or the picture the same place? These questions take Sylvia on a journey to find out about her history.

Along the way, Sylvia finds that all was not as it seemes, and that sometime people are not as noble and fearless ad we thought they were and sometimes the facts of history get confused in the retelling, but the family is still the same family and it doesn't change who people are of the fact that we love them.

This story is told almost as two seperate stories, you have what is going on with Sylvia in the present, which is effected by what she reads in the journal, and the journal is written as if the story if unfold before our eyes. It was amazing to read this story of what might or might not have happend in the Civil War regarding the Underground Railroad, and even in the bad parts, it was still a story worth telling.

Jennifer is am amazing storyteller, and in this book she told two stories that intertwined with each other and brought the reader to the present day, with a better understanding of the past and a hope for the future.
If you like quiliting, or just the rich history of quilts in America, this is a great read. If you are interested in history, and what might have been during the Civiil war, then this is a great read, and if you are just interested in something unquie and enjoyable, then this is a great read. I highly recommned this and the other books in the Elm Creek Series so far.