What do the Amish, Native Americans, Quakers, Colonial,
Civil War, WWII, as well as contemporary women have in common? The interest in quilting—an art form that
spans decades and cultures and seeks to create and comfort.
The Quilts of Love (Abingdon Press) series of novels are being
published with the common theme of quilting, believing that each quilt has a
story to tell. The series will encompass many different genres including light
mystery, historical and contemporary romance, as well as Quaker and Amish
themes.
The Quilts of Love series eventually will encompass 25
beautifully written books by 25 unique and established authors. The last book
in the series will be released in January, 2015. The books can be read in any
order and contain their own characters and distinctive story. Faceout Studio, a
well-known firm in Christian publishing, created the striking book covers for
this series that depict exquisite, colorful quilts. Each cover is truly a work
of art.
Quilts come in all different patterns and styles as do The
Quilts of Love novels. For example, in A
Sky Without Stars by Linda S. Clare, which released last February, is about
a Native American woman who is quilting a Lakota Star for her son. While in Maybelle
in Stitches by Joyce Magnin, a group of World War II era women are quilting a
patchwork quilt while they nervously wait for their men to come home from the
war.
Vannetta Chapman, author of The
Christmas Quilt, stated that the theme of quilting did not get in the way
of telling her story as she wrote about a nine patch quilt and focused on the
nine fruits of the spirit found in Galatians. Each square of the nine-patch
quilt is represented by a comforting story told to an at-risk pregnant woman
illustrating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.
Vannetta is a beginning quilter and depended on experienced
quilters to read her manuscripts and point out any problems in the quilting
area. Authors were not required to be quilters but needed to be familiar with
the art of quilting. An emphasis was put on the story behind the quilt.
The main character in Barbara Cameron’s novel, Scraps of Evidence, is a detective who quilts
as a hobby and uses quilting as a way to help her solve a crime through her
aunt’s old story quilt. Scraps of
Evidence combines the twists and turns of a cozy thriller with quilting and
sparks of a new romance for an irresistible book. Barbara has sewn a quilt
herself many years ago as well as sewing clothes for her two children, before she
started writing books. These days Barbara settles for reading quilting magazines
to satisfy that creative urge since her time is filled writing best-selling
Amish novels.
Quilts and quilting, besides being an art and craft, are used
in a variety of ways in these novels to convey love, family ties, hope for the
future, remembrance of the past, and God’s message of love for us.For more information, the publisher sponsors
a website at www.quiltsoflovebooks.com
with material on all previously published books in addition to the upcoming
novels in the series.