Product Description

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 accommodation. 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #303975 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"'Lovely, brilliant, surefooted and devastating.' Ali Smith"

Eithne Farry, Daily Mail
'beautifully observed ... glints and glows with sly humour and
gentle sadness as she describes the events that destroyed their
friendship.'

Catherine Taylor, Guardian
'a delicate yet sturdy tale of trapped adolescence, nostalgia and
acceptance.'

Customer Reviews

Loved it.
A delightful, beautifully written book. Insightful, funny, evocative, intriguing, sad. Set in the present, the divergent lives of best-school-friends Sally Tuttle and Rowena Cresswell are revealed through flashback to the late seventies, when the 15-year olds shared everything. It brought back to me the intensity of teenage relationships. And how fickle and judgemental we were. How everything is so black and white when we are young. And the use of needlework as metaphor (and just as needlework) was very satisfying. Loved it.

Beautifully written...
I love this author's style of prose - it is utterly gentle and yet at the same time, solid and strong.
Sally and Rowena - friends for life - until a teenage incident tears apart their friendship. Some twenty five or so years later, we see how the incident not only shaped who they became in so many ways but how easy it is to misinterpret a single event.
Told over a period of a couple of days, we are slowly led towards a chance meeting between the two - a reunion of sorts. RT writes with compassion and humility and her characterisation is flawless.
Highly recommended...

Needlework and schooldays
I had heard many good things about this book before I decided to read it and I think perhaps because of that I was slightly disappointed. Yes it was well written and the story was interesting but I did not think it was as marvellous as many people in the media have considered it to be. Sally wins a needlework prize and is invited to speak at a conference in Edinburgh. The book darts back and forth in time and between the two main characters - Rowena and Sally - best of friends whilst they were at school. It gradually emerges that Sally had lost contact with Rowena when the latter became pregnant at 15. The thoughts and feelings of both women nearly 30 years later are well portrayed and the background is interesting. I was reminded of early Anita Brookner in this author's attention to the details of everyday life and the feelings of insecurity which go through any woman's mind all the time. It is ultimately a hopeful book and reminds the reader that friendship is important in the scheme of things.