Brought to you by OBS reviewer Kim

*Beware of possible Spoilers*

I give this book 5 stars because of the complexity of the story and they way Susan Meissner wove these two characters together. I actually cried.

Have you ever experienced something so traumatic that your heart and mind can’t wrap itself around it, then to only throw yourself into living but not actually living but just on automation. It’s call the in between place, it’s a place where you are stuck until something or someone finally shoves you into the present where you have to face the past so that there may be a future.

Here we have a story of two different women in a different place and time, one in 2011 and the other in 1911, but both have loved and lost. They both play the horror that’s befallen on them in their mind one way and to find out it’s not the truth as they thought it was.

In present day Tayrn works at a shop that deals in fabric called Heirloom Yard with her best friend Celine, after her husband dies in theattack of 9/11, she has to let go of their home and move into the apartment above the shop. The day of the attack after years of trying, she found out she was pregnant. Sadly, she didn’t get the news to her husband before he perished. So today she’s working and living above the shop trying to raise their daughter.

Then her worst nightmare comes true, a picture of her among the ashes of the twin towers emerges 10 years later and she is finally going to have to face the truth about the day she lost her husband and the day that left her unborn child fatherless. How is she going to be able to tell her daughter the truth of that day when she can’t even face it?

On the day of the attack Tayrn is running late because of a client and a scarf that she wants matched up to some fabric and if not for that scarf she and the unborn child would have perished among the ashes. How can Taryn live with the truth of being the cause of her husband’s death and him dying before finding out he was going to be a father?

Clara has decided to move to Manhattan and get her life started far away from home. Something about the liveliness of the city attracted her. Then one day she met this wonderful man on the elevator in the building they both work in and it was love at first sight. Do you believe in love at first sight? After reading this you will. After about two weeks of small talk and lovelorn looks he wants her to see the place he works.

At around the time they are to meet a fire breaks out in the building and she is taken outside to safety. As she’s looking up at the floor they were supposed to meet, she sees the very person getting ready to jump out of the window and there is nothing she can do to save him or anyone else. Now the fact that he’s gone and not wanting to let go of the never to be’s, the what-if and the might have beens, she’s found her in-between space on Ellis Island and immerses herself in her work so she doesn’t have to read the paper about the fire. As unexpected events happen, she’s pushed into facing her fears and they love that might not have been.

A man arrives on Ellis Island, an immigrant whose wife died on her way to the welcoming arms of lady liberty, has a bright and beautiful scarf but with a sadness in his eyes that Clara can relate to. So in order to ease his pain she’s forced to face hers. The lives of these women are as intertwined as the fabric and dyes on the scarf that somehow makes its way into both womens’ lives with vibrant colors and marigolds.

*A print copy of this book was supplied by the publisher in exchange for an honest review*