Our Family Quilt: The Fabric of Life

by Rhonda Cratty

Join and experience creativity and nostalgia through Grace, a master quilter, -as she shares her creative gifts with her young granddaughter, Audrey. Together their lives unfold around their family quilt. The love between grandmother and granddaughter keep a family’s generations turning despite minor setbacks, disappointments and celebrations of life. As friends and family of this charming mountain town in Colorado come together for life’s moments. Creating an inspirational, heartwarming story to share with those you love. Our Family Quilt immerses readers • Family Life • Contemporary Women • Quilting ideas • Creativity for everyday living • The secret world of Grandmothers and Granddaughters and the people they love…

425 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 21, 2016

Reviews

[Carole at From My Carolina Home · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel has such a charming idea, but unfortunately suffers in the writing. A grandmother, Grace, teaches her granddaughter, Audrey, how to quilt over a difficult summer. The granddaughter makes a log cabin pattern quilt for her new home. A few years later, she puts an applique on the quilt to commemorate getting her driver's license and gives it back to her grandmother. The family quilt is passed again on special life events, through the next generations, and each time something is added to the quilt. The problem is this first time author apparently did not have an editor to help her, and thus her characters are flat, and there is a severe lack of imagery. In one scene, the characters attend a quilt show. No imagery of the show is given. They stop at a vendor booth with "all the kits you can imagine". But as a reader, I want to know what the author imagines. The characters come upon a lake with people fishing. OK, is the lake water green or blue? Are the people standing on a sandy beach, a rocky shoal, or a weathered pier? Is the lake small, surrounded by evergreens, or large enough to reach to the horizon? I had so many questions with every chapter and scene that went unanswered. No imagery of the characters are given either, the readers doesn't know if Grace is more like Betty White or Tyler Perry's Medea. The dialog is stilted and contrived with too many platitudes, without a natural flow. The voice of the 12-year-old Audrey sounds like a 30-year-old. Combine this with choppy writing, made worse by blank lines between one- or two-sentence paragraphs and every line of dialog, and it is a chore to slog through to the end. This had such great potential, but suffers from glossing over the details, something a good editor could have helped flesh out. I'm sure her family and friends giving her five stars were trying to be supportive, but they would have served this author better by telling her the truth before she spent the money to self publish.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved story! Hated the virtual voice. With very little inflection in the voice it made it hard to tell which character was speaking and it was like there were no periods or commas.
The story of 12 year Audrey going to stay with her grandparents and finding herself and passion to quilt and create. Her grandmother taught her step by step and they started a family quilt of memories.
It made me think of the summer I spent with my grandparents. I learned to sew by the age of 5.
The story itself is beautiful, informative and loving it was the voice that ruined it for me.

[Linda]

A great book for a grandmother and granddaughter to read together. Grace tutors her granddaughter in math by having her make a quilt and cook. Over a summer together their love is solidified and the quilt continues to represent their family.

[Jenn C · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was great, very sweet and heartwarming. The virtual voice was horrible. You couldn't even tell which character was speaking and there was no inflection. I do not want to listen to another book done with virtual voice ever again.

[Suzin Nussbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely family story

Lovely generational family story. Sweet , kind and loving. The kind of family every crafter wants to belong to. Looking forward to the next book.

[Tana T · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was slow to start.

It did become better but there was a great deal of time left out. Most of the characters were there but not really.

[Beth Dunkum · Rating 2 out of 5]

good story but the AI voice took too much away from it.