Praise for the Elm Creek Quilts Series

This redemptive novel beautifully threads together pieces of Sylvia's life story while celebrating the strength of women, sisterhood and friendship. Wrap this one up for a cherished friend

— The Virginian Pilot
The Christmas Quilt

As I read Round Robin, I felt I was a member of the Elm Creek Quilters . . . and even shed a few tears. The situations the characters experience are right on the mark. What a delight to find a book so up-to-date with women's personal issues, and working through them in the security of close friendship.

— Harriet Hargrave, Quilter and Author
Round Robin

[In] the fifth installment in Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilts series, ... the author explores Sylvia's maternal heritage and the women's suffrage movement, alternating between the past and the present. Sylvia is busy planning her wedding to Andrew Cooper and attempting to overcome the resistance of his children, who fear that the seven-year age difference and Sylvia's stroke some years earlier will leave their father in a tenuous situation. What connects the past and the present is Sylvia's odyssey to find her mother's quilts, which had been sold during Sylvia's estrangement from her sister, Claudia. The journey to find the quilts, the detective work of tracking them down, and the family lore behind them illustrate how quilts develop a history beyond that of their maker. Series fans will enjoy this latest installment.

— Booklist
The Quilter’s Legacy

For readers who enjoyed Jan Karon's "Mitford" series, The Quilter's Apprentice is a must read. Sarah McClure, a newcomer to a small college town, takes a temporary position at Elm Creek Manor, helping its reclusive owner Syliva Compson prepare her family estate for sale. As payment for her work, Sylvia teaches Sarah to quilt, while telling about the hardships of growing up during World war II. As the two women become friends, Sylvia helps Sarah face her own family struggles. Together, they learn the value of family, friendship and forgiveness.

— Leah Robarts, Abilene Reporter-News
The Quilter’s Apprentice

The Quilter's Apprentice is a story of forgiveness, friendship, and letting go of the past. It is a beautiful first novel by Jennifer Chiaverini that crosses generations and, once read, should be passed to mothers and sisters and friends... The Quilter's Apprentice will take you on a journey that will introduce you to two remarkable women and shows us all that we can reach across generations and find friendship as well as learning from each other.

— Carolyn McCutcheon, Borders Staff Reviews
The Quilter’s Apprentice

Chiaverini's fourth offering in her Elm Creek Quilts series weaves a modern-day family mystery around a pre-Civil War tale of bravery, deception and the Underground Railroad... Chiaverini manages to impart a healthy dollop of history in a folksy style, while raising moral questions in a suspenseful narrative.

— Publisher's Weekly
The Runaway Quilt

The members of the Elm Creek Quilters set out to commemorate their matriarch Sylvia's recent wedding and her years of devotion to quilting and Elm Creek Manor with a bridal quilt. Sylvia's friends and students agree to contribute blocks that express how Sylvia has inspired them. But the project hits snags when the local quilters are confronted with their own personal problems, including a troubled marriage, a potential business failure, a budding romance, and new career prospects. Long-buried secrets, animosities, and yearnings rise to the surface as the women struggle to meet their quilting deadline and maintain the close circle of friendship that has sustained them. This latest novel in the Elm Creek Quilt series brings to the forefront the supporting characters who have made it such a popular series.

— Booklist
The Master Quilter

If you are familiar with the Elm Creek Quilts series, then you know Jennifer Chiaverini's books are light and sweet without being too light and sweet. The Christmas Quilt fits the mold perfectly. Sylvia Bergstrom Compson, master quilter and matriarch of Elm Creek Manor, flashes back to past Christmases, from the time she and her sister learned the Bergstrom family's famous strudel recipe to the winter when her husband and brother went off to fight in World War II. The captivating story unfolds at a perfect pace. GRADE: A!

— Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The Christmas Quilt

Chiaverini's fifth and best Elm Creek Quilts novel again stitches together a patchwork of American life... The novel's high point is the poignantly detailed description of the flu epidemic of 1918. Less historical but equally touching is Eleanor's aging mother's arrival at the horse farm. Chiaverini's...gift for visual imagery (Abigail going down with the Titanic; Eleanor's quilts recast as wearable art) and gentle humor (a museum exhibit's explanation of one quilt's origins) blend seamlessly into prose that, like the needlework she portrays, proves intricate, lovely, comforting and uniquely American.

— Publisher's Weekly
The Quilter’s Legacy

The latest in the Elm Creek Quilt series explores the lore surrounding the use of quilts to signal runaway slaves traveling the Underground Railroad. Sylvia Compson, owner of Elm Creek Farm and the last of the Bergstrom family line, is intrigued when a quilting student shows her a quilt that complicates the family legend of her ancestors' involvement in the Underground Railroad. She finds old quilts hidden away in the attic, accompanied by a memoir written by Gerda, the spinster sister of the Bergstrom patriarch. The quilts and the memoir raise questions about the Bergstrom family's history that trouble and intrigue Sylvia. Chiaverini switches between passages in Gerda's memoir and current-day events at Elm Creek Farm, including genealogical and historical research, taking the reader back and forth between the present and the past to reveal a long-forgotten family secret. Fans of the three previous Elm Creek Quilts novels will enjoy this latest installment.

— Booklist
The Runaway Quilt