20 in 2014: Book Four

A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One delicately woven scarf. Two women generations apart connected by a shared thread of tragedy. A tale of love lost and redefined.

September 1911: Clara Wood has found refuge from her tragic past on Ellis Island caring for immigrants too ill to gain passage to the United States. It isn’t until the brightly colored scarf on a passing patient catches her eye that she begins to rethink the events that drove her from Manhattan. As she cares for this man, she finds herself in a moral quandary, the truth of which ends up mimicking her life once again…

September 2011: As NYC prepares to honor the tenth anniversary of 9/11, widow Taryn Michaels is forced to confront the truth of the events that forever changed her life in a matter of seconds. One phone call, one late meeting…destiny or selfishness? Had her choices on that harrowing day cost her the love of her life? A long-lost camera is found and Taryn’s quiet “in-between” life is rocked. On that camera, a picture of her standing before the tumbling towers wearing a scarf. The pattern of which has haunted her, a textile expert, she has spent the last ten years searching for fabric similar to no avail. As she relives the terror of that day, she discovers truths she never imagined.

I devoured this book in one sitting. I could not put it down. Two seemingly different stories are so beautifully woven together, much like the threads of the scarf that is the centerpiece of this novel. A beautiful, charming, poignant read.