This is a new author for me. This book is the second book in the Shenandoah Album series. I've got the first book on order, however you can read this book without reading the first book and not be lost.

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Sam Kinkade is finally feeling at home as a minister in rural Toms Brook, Virginia, reasonably content with his life and Shenandoah Valley congregation. But his plans to welcome the area's growing Hispanic community to the church are suddenly met with resistance. Fortunately, when La Casa Amarilla, the church run community center, is threatened, a stranger named Elisa Martinez walks through his door and Sam realizes he has found a woman capable of building bridges.

Elisa is a enigma. Although she slowly becomes involved in the community center, Sam is certain from her guarded manner that she is hiding something. Yet despite their growing friendship, Elisa won't discuss her past. Sam is intrigued with this Latina stranger, a woman who, despite the differences in their backgrounds, makes him only too aware of the intimacy missing in his life.

Elisa isn't looking to make friends, let alone put down roots. She has come to hide. But despite her fears of discovery she is enchanted by beautiful work of and the friendship offered by the church women who invited her to their quilting circle. And even though she fears the consequences for both of them, she finds herself powerfully drawn to Sam.

As she waits and prays for a reunion that may set her free, Elisha is inspired by a generation old love story. Will she and Sam repeat the past , or can the find the love and the freedom they seek at last.
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I'm only on page 203, however I can't put this book down. So different from other books I've read, this author has hooked me totally.

Here is a bit of what she wrote. You decide if you find it interesting:

Piecing the endless chain quilt was a different story.

Perhaps her interest had developed so quickly because piecing a quilt remindered her of fitting a puzzle togheter. As she worked, she was warmed by memories of her mother's laughter and her father's pretend indignation when he couldn't find the right piece.

Or perhaps her interest had bloomed because the rhythmic clinking of the treadle was like the steady beat of the music she once had loved, repetitive and soothing. As she sewed, she was lulled into oblivion, her thoughts drifting back to the happy days before her parents were killed, before she became a mother to the brother who was so much younger than her.

Perhaps it was the familiar splashes of color, the texture of handwoven fabric against her fingertips, the pursuit of beauty when her life had been so devoid of it.

And perhaps it was the image the quilt created in her mind of links so strong they could never be broken, of a solidarity and strength she dreamed of for her people.
Here is Emilie's website. The next book in this series will be out in 2006, titled Lover's Knot.