Welcome to the lovely New England town of Amberley, the setting for Sweet Breath of Memory
With a vibrant Main Street lined with family-owned businesses, Amberley is home to an Italian grocery and an old-fashioned diner. A community that celebrates compassion, it’s a haven for those broken in mind and spirit. Although shaped by war and loss, Amberley’s scars are well hidden. Only when a Holocaust survivor and an Iraq War widow move to town – fifty years apart – are Amberley’s secrets laid bare.
Sweet Breath of Memory reminds us that acts of kindness, and of cruelty, can ripple through time – changing lives, shaping families and defining a town.
Learn more about the novel here.
Trade Paperback
Read an excerpt here.
Large Print Hardcover
Ubi Caritas et Amor, Deus ibi est
My mother is a world-class quilter, a master of straight seams and precise stitching. I’m a bit more freewheeling. Everything is hand-done; I don’t cheat on that score. No, the challenge for me is more one of structure, for quilting demands a framework – literally. It’s similar to novel writing in that respect. Colors that coordinate, like characters that complement, must be joined one to the other so that the whole appears greater than the sum of its parts.
While writing SWEET BREATH OF MEMORY I undertook my first large quilting project. I’d made lap quilts but, like the short stories I’d written that divert for a while, those only keep one cozy for an afternoon nap. A full-size quilt is different. As with a novel, it must envelop, providing so much warmth and security that one lowers defenses. Relaxes and lets go.
The process of creating is common to both quilting and writing, so when the words wouldn’t come, the stitches did. And if my hands cramped from holding the needle, typing relaxed them. Stitch by stitch, sentence by sentence, both projects moved forward. I didn’t realize how linked they were until I saw the novel’s lovely cover image. How wonderful that the color schemes match so beautifully!
Ariella Cohen 