The Forgotten Seamstress

March 24, 2014
An heirloom patchwork quilt hiding a scandalous royal secret is the link between the generations separating an orphaned seamstress and a modern-day single woman, in Trenow’s (The Last Telegram) solid second novel. Maria Romano, an inmate at the Helena Hall mental hospital, comes to life through a series of taped conversations from 1970, when she was interviewed by a young research student. Fast forward to 2008, when Caroline Meadows, made redundant at her bank job and recently broken up from her boyfriend of five years, discovers she’s pregnant and suddenly becomes curious about the quilt she inherited from her grandmother. The novel pairs the stories of the young women a century apart: Maria, an orphan whose artistic needlework gets her placed in a royal household where she has a dalliance with the Prince of Wales; Caroline, whose own artistic talents and ambitions jump-start her career as an interior designer. Unfortunately, Maria’s saga is much more interesting than that of her modern counterpart, who, as the reader discovers through a convoluted plot thread, has more of a connection to Maria than just her grandmother’s quilt. But nevertheless, this is a page-turner with eye-opening details about the conditions of mental hospitals in the 20th century, as well as the provenance of royal fabrics, the art of quilting, and the vagaries of modern interior design.

March 15, 2014
British author Trenow (The Last Telegram, 2013) methodically intertwines the lives of two women who live a century apart in a complex and poignant novel. With understated eloquence and compassion, the author breathes life into the story of Maria Romano, a naive young seamstress who's spirited away from her job at Buckingham Palace to spend years of her life confined to a mental hospital. An orphan with exceptional needlework skills, Maria is pressed into royal service in 1911, when she's barely a teenager, and falls in love with Prince Edward, the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary. Maria can't believe her good fortune when he singles her out for attention--but then she gets pregnant. The young girl is scared but relieved when the housekeeper tells her she'll be taken care of, and she's instructed to gather her bag and get into a carriage. Maria packs up all her worldly possessions, including the beginnings of a patchwork quilt she's pieced together from scraps of fabric she lifted from a palace cupboard, and assumes she's being taken somewhere safe to await the birth of her infant. Rather than a regular hospital, however, she's confined to a mental institution where she hazily recalls giving birth but is told her child died. As the reality of her situation sinks in, Maria attempts to run away, fails and retreats into her own soundless world until a volunteer's encouragement rekindles her interest in stitchery. After 50 years of institutionalization, Maria's childhood friend finds her and arranges for Maria to live in her home--and in 1970, Maria's story is preserved by a student interviewing ex-patients of the mental facility for a research project. Years later, Caroline Meadows struggles with a recent breakup, termination from her banking job and her mother's descent into dementia as she cleans out the family home. Inside a suitcase, she finds a beautiful patchwork quilt once promised to her by her grandmother, and she's compelled to explore the quilt's origins. As Caroline uncovers its secrets, she discovers the threads that bind her to Maria, begins to understand the meaning of home and summons the courage to consider new directions in her life. Weaving together Caroline's and Maria's journeys, Trenow meticulously stitches each piece of this engrossing story into a unified--and heartwarming--whole.

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April 15, 2014
Trenow, author of the WWII-era The Last Telegram (2013), reaches further back in time for her latest compelling historical novel. When orphan Maria Romano, a talented and creative seamstress, is singled out for a position at Buckingham Palace in Edwardian-era London, her future prospects appear limitless. After catching the eye of the Prince of Wales, however, and embarking on an affair with the royal heir, her unfortunate fate is sealed. Rather than risking a scandal, a pregnant Maria is whisked off to an asylum, where she is dismissed as a raving fantasist. Determined not to lose herself completely, she weaves her own story into an intricately designed quilt. Nearly 100 years later, Caroline discovers the quilt and is determined to unlock its secretsa quest that leads to her own voyage of self-discovery along the way. The two narratives are seamlessly woven together, forming a heartrending tapestry of tragedy and resilience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2014
An heirloom patchwork quilt hiding a scandalous royal secret is the link between the generations in Trenow’s (The Last Telegram) solid second novel. The novel pairs the stories of the young women a century apart: Maria Romano, an orphan whose artistic needlework gets her placed in a royal household where she has a dalliance with the Prince of Wales, and Caroline Meadows, whose own artistic talents and ambitions jump-start her career as a contemporary interior designer. Caroline finds the quilt and begins an investigation into it’s provenance. Flosnik treats each character, major or minor, with a sense of distinction and identity. The narrative enthralls as it weaves back and forth between Caroline’s and Maria’s stories—a haunting tale of past and present voiced with grace and beauty. A Sourcebook Landmark paperback.