The Fortune Quilt
Lani Diane Rich
NAL, Mar 2007, $12.95
ISBN: 0451220277

TV Producer of Tucson Today Carly McKay is the best at finding terrific stories for the show; as for her personal life she is a loser. The oldest of three sisters, when her mother abandoned them and their dad, she, as a teen, had to take over raising them. Thus she has no trust in relationships lasting.

Carly has no idea how much she loathed being a teenage mom until her show decides to profile quilter Brandywine Seaver, who states she has psychic skills. On TV Brandywine explains how she quilts psychic energy into her work so that the owner has secret messages waiting for them to unravel. Brandywine surprisingly provides a quilt to Carly with a related psychic reading that insists she will soon be "towered."

Not long afterward, Carly learns what "towered" truly means in Tarot cards when her mom returns home, wanting to turn back the clock fifteen years as if she never left her daughters and on top of that she loses her job. Stunned, Carly blames Brandywine, who lets her crash on her property. Brandywine's neighbor Will, an artist, encourages Carly to open up her heart and soul to him as he does to her.

This is an interesting character study starring a woman with issues caused when her mom deserted the family leaving her in charge of her siblings as a kid raising kids. Will is the first to reach Carly as he coaxes her to find her feminine side after years of being a take-no-prisoner (or friend) type of person. Readers will have difficulty liking the lead character because of her gruff, aggressive personally until Carly learns that "where there's a Will there's a way."

Harriet Klausner