Blind Stitches: A Book Review

Before my trip to New York, I was contacted about reviewing the latest book from J. B. Chicoine, Blind Stitches.

Well, my knitting did not get much attention during the trip, and neither did the book – there was just too much to distract me in Manhattan.  But on the journey home, I pulled out the book and settled in for some quality time with the novel, and to rest my weary feet. 

I was absolutely exhausted, but the story line immediately grabbed my attention and managed to drown out the noisy children on the plane ride home.  I made it half-way through the novel before my eyes started stinging with exhaustion (thank you, delayed late-night flight).  Thanks to the twists and turns in the plot I was dying to make it to the end to find out the Solvay family secret, but my eyes were not having it.  By the next day, I needed to know the ending!  

The story is compelling and much darker than I was expecting (I do not really agree with the "contemporary romance" classification).  It reads more like a thriller/mystery to me, which makes for an exciting read.

A book review might seem an odd choice for a sewing blog, but there is a definite tie in - the main character is a seamstress by trade, and there are sewing references throughout the book, as one character's bridal gown is a crucial piece of the puzzle.

This holiday weekend, I pulled the book out again . . . mysteries are always worth a second read, in my opinion - I love picking up all the little clues the author left her readers that were missed the first time around!

If you are looking for your next read, I would highly recommend Blind Stitches as a very enjoyable story with wonderfully fleshed out characters and a healthy dose of sewing added to the mix!

"Talented young seamstress Juliet Glitch has been putting the finishing touches on a wedding dress for socialite, Nadia Solvay. When Nadia’s father dies unexpectedly two weeks before the wedding, mother of the bride, Olga Solvay, a former prima ballerina and Russian expatriate, asks Juliet to hem her son Nikolai’s trousers for the funeral. He has just returned to America from England, where he has been attending a “school for the blind.”

Juliet’s life in the small but elite community of Historia, New Hampshire, is complicated. Her nineteen-year-old brother, Rome, has Asperger’s, and their aunt, with whom they live, raises chickens and hoards junk. After meeting Nikolai, Juliet finds herself drawn to the intense and serious young man who is not what she expected. As Nikolai and Juliet spend time together, they embark on a psychological and emotional journey into family dysfunction and repressed memories surrounding his mother’s defection from the Soviet Union twenty years earlier. Set against the backdrop of autumn 1989, during the Glasnost era, Nikolai’s family secrets crash alongside the crumbling Berlin Wall." 

[A review copy of Blind Stitches was sent to me, but the opinions expressed here are my own.]