Review: Prayers for Sale

Prayer for Sale
by Sandra Dallas

Hennie Comfort has lived in Middle Swan, a small gold mining town nestled high up in the Colorado Rockies, for about 70 years when she meets the newcomer Nit Spindle. Nit is young, only 17, but she already experienced loss. She struggles to recover after leaving her stillborn baby buried far away in order to find work for her husband in Middle Swan. Nit finds much comfort in Hennie with her exciting stories and her encouragements and their shared love of quilting. And Hennie has so many stories, all of them true. She shares a new one with each chapter that slowly reveal her secrets, like why she changed her name and where her adopted child came from. But there is one story that is not yet ready to be told for it does not yet have an ending. It contains Hennie's biggest secret, one she is not yet ready to face.

I listened to this audio book on my long drive(16 hours!) from Texas to California. If you remember in my review of the audio book of Home, I found the reader's voice annoying. Well it was the same reader for Prayers for Sale, Maggi-Meg Reed. There was no drawn out speech that grated on my nerves. What there was was the distinguishing individual voices and the accurate accents. The feeling in the reading matched the spirit of the book. It was pitch perfect.

I loved Hennie and I understood her desire to help Nit and instruct her in the ways of mountain life. She was a good soul and a deep one. Their love or quilting bonded them. It also bonded me to them. I have been quilting for 12 years though I rarely have time for it anymore. One thing we quilters have in common is an ability to befriend any other quilters despite their differences and irritations. We all know the patience it takes to make a quilt and the pleasure that it brings to the creative soul. It blinds us to everything else. Even if we have nothing else to talk about, we can talk endlessly about fabrics, sewing machines, techniques, batting, designs and so much more. It's a beautiful connection. And so Sandra Dallis has a ready made audience for her books as they all contain quilting in one form or another. But she also has an audience that admires a good story and sensational characters. I am a new fan.

One word review:
Fantastic