Things to Make and Mend
Author: Ruth Thomas
Format: Paperback, 125mm x 195mm, 210g, 272 pages
Published: Faber & Faber, United Kingdom, 2008
At fifteen, Sally Tuttle and Rowena Cresswell were firm friends, until a shocking event changed their lives. Now in their late thirties, they are estranged, both single mothers, both haunted with memories of their intense friendship.
Sally is an embroiderer, a needlewoman ('the homelier sister of Wonderwoman'), who works at In Stitches, a repairs shop in East Grinstead. When she wins an embroidery prize and is invited to a conference in Edinburgh to deliver an embroidery lecture, she has to leave her teenage daughter Pearl alone and step into a new role - lecturer, prize-winner. Rowena Cresswell is in Edinburgh too, helping her son move out of his student accomodation.
This beautifully woven, perfectly pitched story of two women caught in the shadow of their teenage years will stay in the hearts of readers long after they put it down.
Ruth Thomas is an acclaimed Scottish short story writer. Her first collection, Sea Monster Tattoo was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Award and the Saltire First Book Award in 1998. The Dance Settee won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 2000.
Author: Ruth Thomas
Format: Paperback, 125mm x 195mm, 210g, 272 pages
Published: Faber & Faber, United Kingdom, 2008
At fifteen, Sally Tuttle and Rowena Cresswell were firm friends, until a shocking event changed their lives. Now in their late thirties, they are estranged, both single mothers, both haunted with memories of their intense friendship.
Sally is an embroiderer, a needlewoman ('the homelier sister of Wonderwoman'), who works at In Stitches, a repairs shop in East Grinstead. When she wins an embroidery prize and is invited to a conference in Edinburgh to deliver an embroidery lecture, she has to leave her teenage daughter Pearl alone and step into a new role - lecturer, prize-winner. Rowena Cresswell is in Edinburgh too, helping her son move out of his student accomodation.
This beautifully woven, perfectly pitched story of two women caught in the shadow of their teenage years will stay in the hearts of readers long after they put it down.
Ruth Thomas is an acclaimed Scottish short story writer. Her first collection, Sea Monster Tattoo was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Award and the Saltire First Book Award in 1998. The Dance Settee won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 2000.