Things to Make and Mend

As teenagers, Sally Tuttle and Rowena Cresswell were inseparable until a devastating incident changed their lives and destroyed their friendship. Now in their early forties and estranged, they are both single mothers, still haunted by memories of their lost intimacy. Sally, a needlewoman, works at In Stitches, an alterations shop in East Grinstead. Rowena, against all the odds, has gone on to ‘greater things’ as a translator travelling the world. When Sally wins an embroidery prize and is invited to a conference in Edinburgh, she has to step into the new intimidating role of award-winner and public speaker. And as fate would have it, Rowena happens to be in Edinburgh too.

‘The book is excellent. It’s a quite brilliant analysis of a friendship which metamorphoses into something else…Ruth Thomas doesn’t put a foot wrong…’

Ronald Frame, Scottish Review of Books

‘Compelling… a novel about how lives are formed, how small acts change the future…’

Financial Times

‘Glints and glows with sly humour and gentle sadness… Thomas creates a beguiling story from the most ordinary of circumstances…’

Daily Mail