| The Fortune Quilt | 
 enlarge | Author: Lani Diane Rich
Publisher: NAL Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $0.71
You Save: $12.24 (95%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (11 reviews)
Sales Rank: 353669
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0451220277
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780451220271
ASIN: 0451220277
Publication Date: March 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Carly McKay's life is going just fine until she produces a television piece on psychic quilt maker Brandywine Seaver and receives a quilt with an enigmatic reading telling her that everything is about to change. And it does. She loses her job and her best friend (who proclaims his unrequited love for her). And her mother, who deserted the family seventeen years ago, returns, sending Carly into a serious tilt.
Convinced it's the quilt's fault, Carly races down to the small artists' community of Bilby, Arizona, to confront its maker, and ends up renting a cabin from her. Carly even starts to enjoy her reimagined life, until her old life comes calling. Now Carly has to decide what parts of each world she wants to patchwork in...and how much she's willing to leave to fate.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 I laughed, I cried, I built a shrine to Lani... November 21, 2008
Oh, boy. This is going to be another one of those books I can't write about because I liked it too much.
Television producer Carly McKay is pretty comfortable in her life. Until she interviews psychic quiltmaker Brandywine Seaver. Carly's disbelieving, but that doesn't stop Brandy from giving Carly a quilt that she "knows" is hers and giving her a reading:
* her career is in upheaval
* something about South America
* her emotional center is jagged
* pay attention to the paintbrushes
* return the frog
* accept the book with the amber spine
* take the cab
* Mary isn't dead
Carly's shaken by the last pronouncement--Mary is her mother who disappeared when Carly was twelve. But she writes it off until one by one, the predictions start coming true. She loses her job, her mother returns, and her best friend Christopher suddenly announces he wants more from their relationship.
So Carly returns to the quiltmaker's small town to... well, to escape from the upheaval, but she tells herself it's to make Brandy remove the curse and take the quilt back, and she ends up renting a cabin from Brandy and starting a new life, including a romance with her fellow tenant Will, an ex-boyfriend of Carly's older sister.
It's a very emotional story, but at the same time, it's not sappy or maudlin. Most importantly for me, Carly is not a saint. One of the main reasons why I shy away from women's fiction is that when it comes to things like her mother returning after disappearing 17 years ago, the main characters tend to be saints--they forgive immediately. In fact, most women's fiction heroines seem to put up with anything from their mothers, and simultaneously divorce their husbands at the first hint of anything other than fairy tale bliss. Heh. Maybe I've read the wrong women's fiction. Anyway, that is not this book.
Carly's younger sister Five (there's a story behind this name, but you'll have to read the book to find out), and her older sister Ella welcome their mother back with open arms, as does their father, though his reaction is more complex, understandably. But Carly, who'd ended up with all the responsibility when Mary left, is angry and hurt. I very much appreciated that about her. It seemed an honest reaction, and the way it was settled in the end was very satisfying and believable.
The romantic relationships in this book are also a large part of it, though I should warn you that it's not a romance. I didn't really know until the end who Carly would end up with, and I was pleased with her choice.
And there's community. The small town where Brandywine lives is full of artists, making for a lot of interesting characters. Even though they're unusual, they're still believable, and there are some nice sub-plots involving them. It's a town I can imagine being able to visit.
Okay, that's probably enough rambling. I loved the book. It made me laugh aloud, and made me cry. I have all of Lani's books, and she's on my must-buy list.
 From S. Krishna's Books October 26, 2008
The Fortune Quilt is a quick, easy read that is a lot of fun. It deals with serious issues, but never takes its eyes off the fact that it is, at its core, a light-hearted and enjoyable novel. I liked this treatment; it never downplayed the gravity of Carly's situations but it kept the book from becoming heavy or overdramatic.
My favorite part of The Fortune Quilt was Carly's slow transformation as a character. At the beginning of the book, she is basically living in denial, refusing to acknowledge when she is hurt or upset. Gradually, Carly begins to express herself and opens up to Brandy, Will, and the other people she meets. They help to draw her out and transform her into a person who has room within herself to believe in the predictive power of Brandy's quilts.
Carly's mother was harder for me to swallow. I didn't like the way Carly's family turned on her, especially after she had raised her two younger sisters after their mother's departure. I would have hoped they could have been more understanding of her aversion to their mother's return. That being said, because Carly grew so much over the course of the book, she was able to make decisions that prove her transformation into a more understanding and open woman (MUCH more understanding than I think I could have been).
I enjoyed The Fortune Quilt very much; it was quick and easy, perfect for when you don't want to get too bogged down in a book. I'd recommend it to any chick lit fans.
 This Quilt was Destined for Carly! October 22, 2008
Carly is a television producer that is put on a story about a psychic quilt maker. While visiting her during an interview, Brandy, the quilt maker, reveals that she gets inspired to make quilts for people, but that she has no idea who they are for or why she's so inspired to make them. Sometimes it takes years for the person the quilt is made for to show up and in Carly's case, that exactly what happened. Brandy gives her a quilt that she made a few years ago and gives her a psychic reading that neither fully understands and then suddenly, Carly's life begins to change and she thinks it's the quilts fault and sets out to confront the quilt maker.
We are treated to a little bit of magic in the development of the psychic aspect of the story, but it isn't overdone. We are introduced to a few romantic possibilities for Carly and we watch her make some poignant discoveries about herself and her family.
This was almost more "romance" than "chick lit" but it definitely had chick overtones. I enjoyed the psychic twist and I understood Carly's strong reaction to her mother's return to their lives. I think Rich is skilled at story development - I didn't even realize that it was the same author, as I have also purchased A Little Ray of Sunshine and The Comeback Kiss, based on the storyline and I'm glad to see that Rich is the author because I know the stories will be good and that I will enjoy them as I did The Fortune Quilt.
REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK ALOT!! June 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
NOT EVEN SURE WHY I BOUGHT THIS BOOK, BUT IT WAS A VERY PLEASANT SURPRISE WHEN I PULLED IT FROM THE STACKS IN MY LIVING ROOM AND BEGAN READING IT LATE LAST NIGHT. FINISHED THE ENTIRE STORY IN ONE SITTING.
REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK ALOT! LIKED THE CHARACTERS AND FLOW OF THE STORY. JUST ENOUGH MYSTICAL INFLUENCE TO KEEP IT INTERESTING WITHOUT GOING OVERBOARD.
Another gem by a great author November 6, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Skeptical Carly McKay grew up far too quickly when her post-partum depressed mother fled the family 17 ears earlier and at 12, was left in the caretaker role of her younger siblings. Now a Tucson news magazine producer, Carly arrives in the artist commune of Bilby to do a human interest story on Brandy Seaver, a woman who creates elaborate quilts while also providing the owner with a glimpse of their future. Ever the cynic, she balks when Brandy offers her a quilt and vision of her own, mostly since it doesn't make sense. Then odd things start to happen - her best friends and cameraman professes his unrequited love; the station owner flees the country and takes all the assets with him, leaving her out of a job; and most shocking of all, her mother returns and her family seems to embrace this return much to Carly's shock. Giving her family an ultimatum, she packs up her possessions and roams around not sure what to do, then lands on Brandy's doorstep to have it out with the medium. Instead she stays awhile to recharge her batteries and re-imagine her future with the quirky and very inclusive residents of Bilby. A future that might include a certain artist she met at her sister's wedding...
One thing you can always count on with a book written by Lani Diane Rich is to be thoroughly entertained, whether it is chick lit or spicy romance. Carly's self-deprecating humor stands out - I just loved her "Godfather" comments during her reading. I was resistant to reading this since I don't care for books that are leveled in fantasy, magic, and all that jazz. But I'm sure glad I took the chance, because once again, I found myself mesmerized by Rich's witty storytelling.
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