A Promise in Pieces by Emily T. Wierenga

This lovely book "A Promise in Pieces" by Emily T. Wierenga is the story of a young woman named Clara Wilson who volunteered herself as a nurse in World War II much against her parent's advice. She remains a War nurse until the war ends and sends her back home. Before she heads back to her hometown and greets the parents she isn't sure even want to see her, she must travel to New Orleans to deliver a letter to a woman named Mattie, who lost her husband in battle. She had promised the dying soldier that she would deliver this last message to his wife, and it was a promise Clara intended to keep.

Clara is surprised by Mattie when they meet. Although Clara was delivering a letter to Mattie, it seems like Mattie is the one comforting and helping Clara through her troubles. She requests that Clara take a large baby quilt with her, since she won't be using it to wrap any future children in now that her husband is gone.

When Clara returns home to her parents, she is surprised by what she sees. Her father quickly embraces her even though growing up, he showed her very little physical contact or any attention at all. He seems to sense that life is fleeting and that he needs to let his daughter live her own life and make her own decisions. Clara also sees that her mother's health has taken a turn for the worse since she left and her father doting on her mother, trying to get her to eat, drink or even talk.

After a few months of life getting back to normal, Clara decides it's time for her to look for a job and get out on her own. She finds out that although she is not the least bit interested in having children of her own, she is an excellent midwife and learns to birth many babies. She ends up using the quilt that Mattie gave her as sort of a tradition for each baby born. She even hand stitches each child's name into the quilt.

Eventually, Clara begins to wonder whatever happened to Mattie, and even begins to think that God has more in store for her than just delivering babies.

So far I haven't found a book in the Quilts of Love series that I didn't like, and this book was equally as exciting as all of the rest! For one thing, I love the way the story of Clara is told. The book actually begins as Clara telling her life story to her grandson Noah on a long car ride.  I love the way she speaks as if she's reminiscing, and the chapters alternate between the present and the past. I had a very hard time even putting this book down! I kept wanting to read more and more of it to see what happened. This is a book I will most definitely be reading again, and would highly recommend it to others!

I rate this book as 5 stars. I received this book for free from Litfuse in exchange for my honest unbiased opinion.