Pages: 402
Rating: PG (More death. Nothing graphic, and nothing inappropriate)
Summary:
Sarah's Quilt, the long-awaited sequel to These Is My Words, continues the dramatic story of Sarah Agnes Prine. Beloved by readers and book clubs from coast to coast, These Is My Words told the spellbinding story of an extraordinary pioneer woman and her struggle to make a home in the Arizona Territories. Now Sarah returns.
In 1906, the badlands of Southern Arizona Territory is a desolate place where a three-year drought has changed the landscape for all time. When Sarah's well goes dry and months pass with barely a trace of rain, Sarah feels herself losing her hold upon the land. Desperate, Sarah's mother hires a water witch, a peculiar desert wanderer named Lazrus who claims to know where to find water. As he schemes and stalls, he develops an attraction to Sarah that turns into a frightening infatuation.
And just when it seems that life couldn't get worse, Sarah learns that her brother and his family have been trapped in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. She and her father-in-law cannot even imagine the devastation that awaits them as they embark on a rescue mission to the stricken city.
Sarah is a pioneer of the truest spirit, courageous but gentle as she fights to save her family's home. But she never stops longing for the passion she once knew. Though her wealthy neighbor has asked her to wed, Sarah doesn't entirely trust him. And then Udell Hanna and his son come riding down the dusty road. . . .
My Thoughts: I'm not sure if I liked this book better than These is My Words, but I definitely still loved it. It's a different kind of book in that the first one was a diary, and this one is absolutely more of a novel, though still written in first person with every section dated. Also, the first book covered about 10 years, and this book only covers only about 6 months.
Sarah is the type of character that you admire, want to be like, and by the end of the book, you feel as if you're as much a part of her family as anyone else. It's the type of book that draws you in by the closeness of the characters and the stubbornness and strength of the heroine so that you feel as if you're just keeping up with the life events of a close friend or family member by the end of it all.
Lazrus is the creepiest and weirdest part of this book. Not gonna lie, he freaked me out. He's this eccentric wild man who randomly decides to be obsessed with Sarah, and she can't seem to get him to go away. He terrifies everyone.
The only thing that drives me crazy about Sarah is that she's really stupid when it comes to love. She did that in the first book, taking forever to decide she was in love with Jack. And now in this book, she spends way too much time thinking about marrying her neighbor, who she knows she doesn't really like. However, the author does a great job of revealing Sarah's healing process. At the beginning of the book, Sarah (and me as well) was still mourning the death of her husband Jack. Even though it happened years ago, she misses him deeply and longs for him daily. However, you get carried along in her journey of letting go of him, and finally getting ready to move forward in her life. At the beginning of the book, I was right with Sarah, thinking she could never love anyone the way she loved Jack and that no one could ever replace him. But by the end, I was feeling the same way as she was, that Jack was wonderful, but that she could maybe start to let it go while still remembering the happiness of that relationship.
As a story, this book is full of even more tragedy and trial than the first book was, but Sarah is just so strong, you just know she'll be able to make it through, and things will be alright. When I finished the book, my feeling was that life is full of bad things happening, but that's normal. That happens to everyone. The important thing to do is remember your blessings and be grateful for what you still have. That will take the sting off of the difficulties.
Anyway, I loved this book, and can't wait to read the final book, "The Star Garden."
(By the way, don't feel like you have to invest in 3 books if you want to read just one. So far, the two books seem to be very able to stand on their own, with satisfying, not cliff-hanger endings.)
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