This was an impulse purchase at one of my local library sales, I think. It's set in 1930's Kentucky during the dust bowl years and featured friendship and quilts. How bad could it be?
Turns out not bad at all - it was excellent. AND what they don't tell you on the cover is that there's a mystery to be solved, so of course I loved it even more.
Queenie is a young farm wife and part of the quilting circle called the Persian Pickle Club. Rita is a newcomer to town and the club; a city girl who has just married a hometown boy reluctantly returned to the farm. Queenie decides to make Rita feel welcome and tries her best to fold Rita into the daily routine of life in a farming community, but Rita doesn't want to be a farmer's wife; she has ambitions of her own to be a journalist and in her pursuit she digs up secrets people would rather remain hidden.
The beauty of this book is that it isn't trying to be anything it isn't; it feels like an authentic snapshot of time and place (and warning: it includes some language common to the time that we consider verboten now). It doesn't make any moral judgements and the plot doesn't adhere to the strict definition of justice. And that's all I'm saying because anything else would spoil it. Let's just say I was giddy over the way it surprised me.
It's an easy read with potential to be a comfort read as well. Definitely one of the better impulse buys I've made.