Bestselling author Viola Shipman delights with this captivating summertime escape set along the sparkling shores of Lake Michigan, where a woman searches for clues to her secretive mother's past. Devastated by the sudden death of her mother--a quiet, loving and intensely private Southern seamstress called Miss Mabel, who overflowed with pearls of Ozarks wisdom but never spoke of her own family--Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to pack up...

Set in 1950's London, Reynolds Woodcock is a renowned dressmaker whose fastidious life is disrupted by a young, strong-willed woman, Alma, who becomes his muse and lover.

Presents a fictionalized account of the friendship between Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave.

Like threads of delicate gold, the lives of two young Italian lovers, Enza Ravanelli, a practical girl born into poverty, and Ciro Amadei, a dreamer raised in a convent orphanage, are woven together in this lush, epic novel set against the landscape of world events in the first half of the 20th century. The Shoemaker's Wife spans two world wars, immigration, the birth of American manufacturing, the rigors of assimilation and the Great Depression....

Since her parents' mysterious deaths many years ago, scientist Cora Sparks has spent her days in the safety of her university lab or at her grandmother Etta's dress shop. Tucked away on a winding Cambridge street, Etta's charming tiny store appears quite ordinary to passersby, but the colorfully vibrant racks of beaded silks, delicate laces, and jewel-toned velvets hold bewitching secrets: With just a few stitches from Etta's needle, these gorgeous...

Therese Bell, an elderly Frenchwoman, has an impressive clothing collection. But among the array of smart suits and couture gowns, London dressmaker Phoebe finds a child's sky-blue coat--an item with which Bell is stubbornly reluctant to part. As the two women become friends, Phoebe will learn the tale of that little blue coat. And she will discover an astonishing connection between herself and Therese Bell--one that will help her heal the pain of...

The year 1900 ushers in a new century and the promise of social change, and women rise together toward equality. Yet rules and restrictions remain, especially for women like Alice Butterworth, whose husband has abruptly disappeared. Desperate to make a living for herself and the child she carries, Alice leaves the bitter cold of Chicago far behind, offering sewing lessons at a New Orleans orphanage. Constance Halstead, a young widow reeling with shock...

North Carolina, 1946. One woman. A discovery that could rewrite history. "A beautifully rendered portrait of a young woman finding her courage and her voice."—Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who’s just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous...

For readers of Lilac Girls and The Nightingale comes an internationally bestselling World War II novel that spans generations, crosses oceans, and proves just how much two young women are willing to sacrifice for love and family. 1940: As the Germans advance upon Paris, young seamstress Estella Bissette is forced to flee everything she's ever known. She's bound for New York City with her signature gold dress, a few francs, and a dream: to make her...

While preparing The Hollywood Glamour Exhibition at the Smithsonian, costume conservator Sylvia Early discovers another name beneath a label and unearths the story of Zora Hough, a talented young seamstress who left her poverty-stricken life in 1924 Jazz Age Seattle behind to realize her dreams of becoming a designer. 2023, The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes...