Sisters of the Quilt

Sisters of the Quilt

by Cindy Woodsmall

Sisters of the Quilt is a trilogy which includes “When the Heart Cries”, When the Morning Comes” and “When the Soul Mends”. Three very well written stories of a Hannah Lapp , a young woman brought up in the Old Order Amish community of Owl’s Perch, Pennsylvania. Maneuvering the confusion and trials of the teen age years can be difficult for any young girl but Hannah has the added pressure of her strict religious upbringing clashing with the less stern secular society that she is being drawn to. The boundaries drawn by her church and family are stretched to the breaking point by forbidden love, an unforgivable crime and the yearning of a young heart to know something of the despised “Englisher” world that lay just a short distance away. On one of the happiest days of her life, a brutal attack forces Hannah to search deeply in her heart for understanding, forgiveness and the strength to find her way in a new and terrifying world. Facing the consequences of someone else’s actions, Hannah struggles to follow the rules and beliefs that she was raised with while facing a situation that will never be understood by those she loves. As she confronts the toughest trial of her young life, she learns to trust her own feelings. She discovers how to be honest with herself and in doing so she learns that to withhold her deepest feelings from others, as she has been taught, can often lead to deep, sometimes devastating and irreparable misunderstandings. Hannah grows in this knowledge and finds the balance of respect for herself and for those that she loves so dearly and the ability to share her inner most thoughts.

Cindy Woodsmall’s compelling study of the Amish lifestyle will lead you to admire the commitment and devotion that these communities must practice in order to live in a world that is often uncaring and insensitive to those who hold very strongly to their religious convictions.

I would recomend this to all readers, including young adult.