The world's fair quilt A novel

Best-selling author Chiaverini will captivate her audience with the newest novel in the Elm Creek Quilt series (after The Museum of Lost Quilts, 2024). Sylvia is having financial difficulties that are threatening her family legacy. One week before she is set to open Elm Creek Orchards, Summer Sullivan, who is an Elm Creek Quilter founder, arrives and asks to display an antique quilt that Sylvia and her sister made when they were teenagers during the Great Depression. While the sisters were never particularly close, they had decided to band together to try to win the Sears National Quilt contest in 1933, which came with a large grand prize. Keeping with the contest theme of "Century of Progress," the sisters illustrated the progress of values with scenes of the Emancipation Proclamation, unions, and women's suffrage. Though the sisters won their local division, they failed to win the overall contest, but grew closer through the experience. This tale about family, heartache, and resilience is patched together eloquently.

Chiaverini (Museum of Lost Quilts) continues the charming adventures of octogenarian quilter Sylvia Bergstrom and her friends at the Elm Creek Quilt Camp retreat in Waterford, Pa. It's 2004, and recurring character Summer, a curator at the Waterford Historical Society, wants to exhibit the quilt that Sylvia and her estranged sister Claudia made when they were teenagers for a quilting contest at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. In flashbacks, Sylvia recalls painful memories of jealousy and competition with her sister during the making of the quilt. Meanwhile, Sylvia's accountant, Sarah, reveals the retreat's financial shortfalls and suggests opening the adjacent orchard to apple pickers to increase revenue. Sylvia, however, balks at "amateurs running amok in my orchard." The novel's pastoral details, such as the delivery by wagon of homemade apple cider to workers building a farm stand, evoke a simpler time of camaraderie and cooperation between neighbors, and this sense of tight-knit community blends seamlessly with the historical details and enriching quilt lore. Series fans and newcomers alike will be glad to be in Sylvia's company. Agent: Maria Massie, Massie & McQuilkin. (Apr.)

It's been 25 years since Chiaverini introduced readers to the "Elm Creek Quilts" series, and she shows no signs of slowing down, deftly stitching two storylines together in this offering. It's 1933, and Sylvia and her sister Claudia, whose relationship is tense at best, come together to sew a quilt for a nationwide contest. The winning quilt will be displayed at the Chicago World's Fair, then presented to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. There is also a hefty cash prize. In 2004, Sarah and Matt are busy with the grand opening of a new fruit stand and ways to make more money for a needed roof repair on octogenarian Sylvia's mansion, an important location for the quilting classes and events that are held there. Along the way, Sylvia learns the importance of the quilt she and her sister made more than 60 years ago. VERDICT Fans of the series will love this entry, which can be read on its own but will build interest in the preceding "Elm Creek Quilts" books.--Pam O'Sullivan