A Single Thread
By Tracy Chevalier
I spent the summer of 2020 reading all of Tracy Chevalier’s books, but I seem to have missed this one. And I’m sorry I didn’t read it sooner!
It tells the story of Violet Speedwell, a woman in 1932 recovering from the effects of World War 1, where she lost her fiancé and her brother. We follow her move from Southampton to Winchester to get away from her mother and gain independence after the loss in her life. There, she joins The Broderers, which is an embroidery group who design and sew patterns on the kneelers in the cathedral. Violet vows to herself to make her own mark and so joins the group to achieve this goal. Throughout reading about her increasing skills in embroidery, we see Violet forming new relationships with the people around her as she strives to avoid the judgement people throw at her for being unmarried.
I found it a bit slow to start off with, but as the book progresses it is easy to see how it was just setting the scene up for the important events. This does, however, create an almost rushed ending; once I really got into the book I couldn’t put it down at all, so I did definitely have to finish it in one sitting. The characters in this book are all very different and the main characters are very fleshed out, so there are aspects of each one which anyone could relate to. I got very attached to all the characters, but there were one or two specific ones which I would happily read about in their own spin-off book!
This is a good holiday read as it doesn’t take intense concentration to read. It is a feel-good book with a happy ending in the form of female independence, going against societal norms, and not letting anyone’s opinion of you change your plans or who you are.
As always, the Wye Review recommends you purchase this book from your local independent bookshop.
Online you can use Hive or Bookshop.org, and if you’re lucky enough to have a local bookshop they’ll always gladly order a copy in for you. You can even borrow a copy from a library, again, if you’re lucky enough to have one near you.
You can read more from Isabella Bonnett here; she has written other reviews as well as other articles on various topics.
