The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love - By Beth Pattillo
Praise for
The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love
“You’ll fall in love with the ladies of Sweetgum! Beth Pattillo knits an engaging novel where so many lives are woven together seamlessly.”
—LEANNA ELLIS, award-winning author of Ruby’s Slippers
“I love the ladies of the Sweetgum Knit Lit Society! Beth Pattillo has created characters so real I want to join their group and a setting so charming I want to visit on my next vacation. Thankfully I can get away and do that without leaving my cozy reading corner just by opening the pages of The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love. Warm and sweetly southern, Pattillo delivers everything you want in a story and then some.”
—ANNIE JONES, award-winning southern author
Praise for
The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society
“Jan Karon meets Jodi Piccoult. The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society is an intriguing look into the minds and hearts of a diverse group of women. This is a compelling and heartwarming story full of love and grace you don’t want to miss!”
—JULIE L. CANNON, author of The Romance Readers Book Club
“Like Debbie Macomber, Beth Pattillo spins warm, compelling stories out of the lives of everyday people. Five women and a girl gather regularly at the Sweetgum Christian Church to knit, read, and talk, and in the process they confront their own secrets, dreams, and challenges. I hope this is the first of a series so I can revisit the Knit Lit Society again and again!”
—MARY JO PUTNEY, author of A Distant Magic
“Thank you, Beth Pattillo, for casting on characters who so vividly reveal our human failing to render and receive love, which, as you so artfully depict, we too often withhold, delay, rush, misdirect, or hide from. But thank you most of all for showing us how the smallest of tentative steps we take toward each other can help us to find our true selves, and therefore lead us closer to God’s perfect love.”
—CHARLENE ANN BAUMBICH, speaker, humorist, author of the Welcome to Partonville series
“I could almost hear the clack of knitting needles as I read through the pages of The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society. Beth Pattillo’s motley group of true-to-life characters deal with life’s struggles and share a camaraderie that few take the time to discover in this heartwarming yarn of true friendship. A must read!”
—DIANN HUNT, author of For Better or For Worse
For the ladies of Pursuit—
You know who you are, and I know how fabulous you are.
Thank you for the love and support, but most of all,
thank you for the bling.
Every Tuesday at eleven o’clock in the morning, Eugenie Carson descended the steps of the Sweetgum Public Library and made her way to Tallulah’s Café on the town square. In the past, she would have eaten the diet plate—cottage cheese and a peach half—in solitary splendor. Then she would have returned to her job running the library, just as she’d done for the last forty years.
On this humid September morning, though, Eugenie was meeting someone for lunch—her new husband, Rev. Paul Carson, pastor of the Sweetgum Christian Church. Eugenie smiled at the thought of Paul waiting for her at the café. They might both be gray haired and near retirement, but happiness was happiness, no matter what age you found it.
Eugenie entered the square from the southeast corner. The antebellum courthouse anchored the middle, while Kendall’s Department Store occupied the east side to her right. She walked along the south side of the square, past Callahan’s Hardware, the drugstore, and the movie theater, and crossed the street to the café. The good citizens of Sweetgum were already arriving at Tallulah’s for lunch. But Eugenie passed the café, heading up the western side of the square. She had a brief errand to do before she met her husband. Two doors down, she could see the sign for Munden’s Five-and-Dime. Her business there shouldn’t take long.
Before she reached Munden’s, a familiar figure emerged from one of the shops and blocked the sidewalk.
Hazel Emerson. President of the women’s auxiliary at the Sweetgum Christian Church and self-appointed judge and jury of her fellow parishioners.
“Eugenie.” Hazel smiled, but the expression, coupled with her rather prominent eyeteeth, gave her a wolfish look. Hazel was on the heavy side, a bit younger than Eugenie’s own sixty-five years, and her hair was dyed an unbecoming shade of mink. Hazel smiled, but there was no pleasantness in it. “Just the person I wanted to see.”
Eugenie knew better than to let her distaste for the woman show. “Good morning, Hazel,” she replied. “How are you?”