The Blue Shawl

At the turn of the Twentieth Century a young girl, Millie, is caught between her mother's needs, her father's expectations, and a secret that she will need her entire life to recognize. The secret will motivate her towards her most profound yearning and her deepest anguish. Christin Lore Weber writes with an intensity that catches the reader up in the power of language as well as the tangles of relationships between intriguing characters. She weaves a story that will touch your heart. A story, like a shawl, is knit over time and contains various patterns. This story was knit over generations of the lives of women in the lineage of Milda Schatz. Each woman, mother to daughter, down the generations carried the pattern in her fingers and as a flowing thread of memories. Each of them took part. Liese, who hid what she had made, Julia-lost, Julia unraveled, Milda, who tangled and untangled the skein. But Milda also kept the family secrets like heirlooms. "She lifted a box from its hiding place in her dresser drawer and set it on her lap. She took a deep breath before removing the cover. The sight of the blue shawl, unchanged over all these years, drove her heart up into her throat. Her breath caught on it. She made a little sound, involuntary, a moan....She stared at it as though she had never seen it before, and holding it in her hands, felt almost worshipful, as though she held a relic and had become lost in contemplation. She must have sat for an hour, holding the shawl, a thing too beautiful to wear, until her breathing deepened like the breathing of someone in a dream. Then she returned the shawl to its box and replaced it in the bottom of the drawer. On top of it she organized all the other finery, closed the drawer, and turned out the light."