MY REVIEW: 5*

Connie Carter has left a life in America to live in the Irish countryside residence of Ludlow Hall.  She has lost everything and has to start agin and try to make sense of what her life is.  Ludlow has been stood empty and is need of love, life and care.  Local residents are at first, apprehensive of what this stranger from across the pond will do to their beloved Ludlow. Connie herself is apprehensive of not fitting in and being a stranger in this close-knit community, as she begins to get acquainted with the area she finds a couple of local ladies willing to help.  Eve, used to live at the hall and is a member of The Ludlow Ladies’ Society along with her good friend Hetty.  The Society has a project to make memory quilts for an upcoming festival.  During the making of these quilts, secrets, memories, heartbreak as well as good memories and stories will rise and make themselves known.  The three women all have previous histories that still haunt them, and it is while the quilts are being made, they will be able to deal with the past and move forward.  In doing this they form a strong bond and a friendship, they will need this support more than they know.

You will want to read this book in a day.  Once you start it, you will not want to put it down until the very last page has been read and absorbed.  It is a beautifully written, heartwarming story of friendship.  There are secrets in the lives of the women that are hard to read, it is not a soft story to read.  Ann has shown how cruel, vindictive and nasty people can be, but balanced it beautifully, showing the caring and compassionate nature of people.  As you read through the story, you will see how tragedy can be almost too much to bear, it is something that should not be dealt with alone.  Also how to move on towards the future, you need to deal with the past and completely leave it behind.

I would highly recommend this book to readers of General and Women’s Fiction.  It is a book that will creep its way into your heart as you read it.  A wonderfully written and beautiful story that had me in tears in several places, and shocked in others.  I also think this would make a great choice for Book Reading Groups, as there many things for group discussion contained within this story.

I would like to thank Netgalley, Ann o’Loughlin and Black & White Publishing for my eARC copy of this book.  My review is my own honest and unbiased personal opinion.

THE BLURB:

Connie Carter has lost everybody and everything dear to her. To help nurse her grieving heart and to try and find answers, she moves from her home in America to Ludlow Hall, deep in the Irish countryside. All she knows about Ludlow is that her late husband spent all their money on the house – without ever mentioning it to her. Now Connie needs to know why.

At Ludlow Hall, Connie befriends Eve and Hetty and is introduced to the somewhat curious Ludlow Ladies’ Society. But can Connie ever reveal her hurt? And, more importantly, can she ever understand or forgive? As the Ludlow Ladies stitch patchwork memory quilts to remember those they have loved and lost, the secrets of the past finally begin to surface.

The Ludlow Ladies’ Society is a story of friendship, resilience and compassion, and how women support each other through the most difficult times.

“The Ludlow Ladies Society brought me to a beautiful place and into a circle of friends that I didn’t want to leave. Unputdownable. Ann’s world is uniquely Irish in its warmth and charm.”
KATE KERRIGAN

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