OK. I admit that I've been so busy reading lately that I haven't had time to WRITE about the wonderful books that have come why way in the past few weeks. This one was a great, a mix of real and imaginary characters and situations that make you wonder, "Could this have really happened? DID it happen?"
Maria Romano, an orphan, is chosen at a young age to become a seamstress for royalty at Buckingham Palace during the Edwardian era. Her exceptionally fine needlework and youthful naivete result in a friendship with the Prince of Wales, and she finally embarks on an affair with the young man, falling deeply in love with him. During the course of her employment at the palace she finds scraps of royal wedding silks, specially woven for the future queen, and begins to create a beautiful patchwork quilt depicting events in her own life. When it is discovered that she is carrying the prince's child she is sent to a mental hospital where she is told after giving birth that her child has died. In a horrifying depiction of the treatment of women in the early 20th century, she is confined to the hospital for 50 years, diagnosed as a fantasist who has created the whole story of her affair with the prince.
Years later, Caroline inherits the quilt, handed down from her grandmother, and discovers from a designer friend that the fabric is rare and royal. so Caroline sets out to discover who created the beautiful quilt and how it ended up in the hands of her grandmother.
Trenow expertly weaves together the stories of Maria and Caroline. She uses a graduate students's interviews with Maria (as a former mental patient during the 1970's) and intersperses them with Maria's story in early 1900's and Caroline's quest to trace the history of the quilt while also trying to pull together her own life and career. The Forgotten Seamstress is a wonderful mix of historic and contemporary fiction with a fascinating dash of quilting thrown in.
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