First the title intrigued me. Then the description reeled me in.
Loved this book from the beginning and maintained this feeling right up to the last page. Definitely recommend it.
And having never read Susan Wigg before, I can promise that I will be searching for more.

It’s not often that a book effects me like this one did. This is a beautiful and nuanced story of women taking back their spirits after domestic violence. It was heartbreaking and heartwarming. It made me smile and sob. Unsuspecting readers may initially write this book off as a sleepy story of a small town sewing circle, but they would be wrong. This is an emotional read that will spark so many wonderful and cathartic conversations among friends. Trigger warning for domestic violence should be noted.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this novel.

A very reveting story about the aftermath of drug and domestic abuse. A woman has guardianship over a friend's children after her death. She moves across the country back to her home town and her family to give the children a fresh start and safety. This is a story about building a new life, a new career, a new family, and new connections in the midst of terrible circumstances.

Great book! I really enjoy Susan Wiggs and this book was no exception. The story felt very fresh and current to me. It was a fun read. I would recommend to readers of Debbie Macomber and Sherryl Woods.

Heartwarming story about a woman who goes back to her hometown after her career crashes and burns. I really enjoyed it. I would compare it to a Debbie Macomber book.

Perfect summer reading. Interesting story of a girl, Carolyn Shelby, who works in the glamorous fashion industry as a designer. At her biggest show so far her fashion line was stolen by another designer. He got the jump on her by showing her designs first. After the disappointment of losing everything she has been working on, she decides to move back to her home town and start her life over. She reacquaints herself with her childhood friend Will Jensen, falls in love with him and then loses him to her best friend. I enjoyed this book.

Have you ever read one of those books that just ties up too neatly? Well, this is one of them. While I enjoyed the story and admired a lot about Caroline, there were quite a few events in the book that made me raise my eyebrows--why in the world would any sensible person make THAT choice? As a romance novel, I knew the ending of the Will/Caroline story right away, but some of the subplots has resolutions that I just didn't think rang true.

Like many of Susan Wiggs' other books, this is set in a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone, or do they? I wonder if she is setting up another series? The setting was wonderful and I would like get better get to know some of the sewing ladies.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley. Grade: B-

Caroline Shelby never imagined returning to Oysterville, the Pacific Northwest town she left behind to pursue her dream of a fashion career in New York City. Yet circumstances lead her back to her childhood home to regroup after her career collapses and a tragic incident claims the life of a friend, whose young children are now in her care. With the support of her family, Caroline struggles to find her footing, create a stable environment for Addie and Flick, and tackle the realization that her deceased friend was a victim of domestic abuse.

Resettling into small town life, Caroline is determined to provide for herself and the children, while rekindling bonds with friends and neighbors. She is also intent on making a difference in the lives of local women in abusive relationships. She begins the Oysterville Sewing Circle, a safe place for abused women to meet and find support. Utilizing her creative sewing and design talents, Caroline establishes a business that offers employment to the women in the sewing circle, while also providing financial support for herself and the children.

As the prospect of a future in Oysterville unfolds, Caroline finds reestablishing ties with the two most important friends of her youth to be a complicated undertaking. The intervening years have reshaped her relationship with Will and Sierra, and they, too, are dealing with the curves that life has thrown their way. Can these once inseperable friends forge a new relationship going forward?

The Oysterville Sewing Circle is a story about following one's heart, the importance of family, the redemptive power of women's relationships, and second chances. Although it addresses serious contemporary topics, it demonstrates the possibility for justice and the resilience of the human spirit.

Caroline has always dreamed of being a designer. It turns out to be a cutthroat business, and she feels her dream is destroyed. While trying to figure out what to do next, her friend comes to her seeking shelter for herself and her two young children. It's clear that something is wrong, but Caroline can't get any answers. From there, Caroline's life takes one unexpected turn after another. Susan Wigg has crafted an interesting story that brings several disparate themes and characters together into a cohesive story that is ultimately uplifting.

Caroline is about to make it big in the fashion design world, only to have it crashing down when her mentor steals her designs for his own. At the same time, she suspects her best friend and model, Angelique is being physically abused. Angelique denies it. Soon after she and her two children, Addie and Flick,move in with Caroline, Angelique ODs and Caroline is left as the children's guardian. She packs up and takes the children to her childhood home, Oysterville. Her family is delighted to have her home and treats the children with love and affection. Caroline needs to find a source of income, find a place of her own, and raise the children. She visits her favorite sewing shop where she worked when in high school. The owner is more than happy to see her and they settle into a pattern. Caroline discovers that the owner has suffered from physical abuse and she suspects that the new assistant is also a sufferer. Caroline wants to do something to help these women and others like them. She starts the Oysterville Sewing Circle, a place where women can come and talk freely. Yes, there is also a love interest, Caroline's childhood summer playmate, Will Jensen, who married her best friend Sierra. Susan Wiggs has written an inspirational story that will catch your interest immediately.

Disguised as a woman’s romance story Susan Wiggs masterfully digs deep into quite another world – that of domestic abuse. Susan Wiggs uses her star character’s ingenious creativity to construct a carefully designed safe zone for women who have been abused. THE OYSTERVILLE SEWING CIRCLE is not a craft group but instead a wondrously conceived design for a place to Mend Your Heart. Susan Wiggs’ gift of allegory is nothing short of masterful in THE OYSTERVILLE SEWING CIRCLE. I admit to having put this book aside for a while but not for long. Books by Susan Wiggs don’t sit on my shelf for long. They call to me and I am so glad that I listened to my heart and picked THE OYSTERVILLE SEWING CIRCLE to be my next book to read and review. It is that good.
Caroline Shelby reluctantly returns to her hometown of Oysterville. A town basically developed around the chief product of – you guessed it – oysters. Her parents have a restaurant that has charmed and attracted customers from all over with their fresh seafood and amazing baked goods and of course charm. Sorry for that redundancy. Caroline is a fashion designer whose latest and largest set of designs was about to gain her entrance into the world of retail fashion. However her work was stolen by the very man who had mentored her. Now licking her wounds and with two orphaned children at her side Caroline is back home trying to reinvent herself.
Will Jensen is now back home released from military service due to an injury and married to Sierra. Sierra had come along to Oysterville with her preacher father. Sierra and Caroline hit it off immediately. Caroline with her design sense and Sierra with her fashion sense. One was the fabricator the other was the perfect model. Most important was the relationship that grew from this trio. Sierra joined Caroline in welcoming Will back each summer. But as time went on it was apparent that Sierra and Will were a couple. Caroline could have easily stepped aside and removed herself from an uncomfortable situation. But only Caroline knew that she had harbored a little crush of her own. Her secret. Friendship with Will and Sierra were more important. More vital.
Caroline had gone to New York and fashion designing. Will had trained to be a SEAL. Sierra followed her dream to become a model. Somehow life stepped in and all three were now back. Will was now living permanently in Oysterville.
Susan Wiggs reminds us of a saying – life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans.
It couldn’t have been truer with these three friends.
Each character in THE OYSTERVILLE SEWING CIRCLE is created with a sense of reality and humanity. Susan Wiggs lets us view each with their flaws right out in the open so that we don’t become fanciful. Even the name of Caroline’s group has an important historical reference which made me stop and think once again about the message. So if you are looking for a great beach read this book has got to move to the number one position. If you are already a fan of Susan Wiggs than you will not be surprised at how wondrous THE OYSTERVILLE SEWING CIRCLE story is. Caroline is a tremendous character whose story touches your heart and is a joy to follow. The relationship with Will is so well developed it feels real.

In today's world of #MeToo, this book was very timely, however this book was much more than that. Susan Wiggs made these characters very real and familiar to me. This story was of heartache and redemption, of pain and love and once again reminded us all that no one knows what is going on in another person's life. Once I started the book, I had a hard time putting it down.

Super fun book! Very current...loads of great twists, and still kept it fresh and interesting. Loved the characters and the setting. Looking forward to reading more from Susan Wiggs

3.5 stars. Thank goodness Susan Wiggs is still writing Women's Fiction (several of my favorite authors have apparently abandoned the genre for edgy thrillers), although The Oysterville Sewing Circle is weakened by too much plot and a subtle anti-feminist undertone.

There's an awful lot to cover in less than 400 pages, including Caroline's attempt to reclaim her fashion career after a top designer steals her ideas, her sudden thrust into parenting two orphaned, traumatized children that causes her to return home after years of self-exile, and her attempts to start a domestic abuse survivor support group. Plus there's a romance shoehorned in there as well. The result is that most of the plots don't get the attention they deserve. I especially would have appreciated reading more about little Flick and Addie's adjustment to their new lives (they seemed remarkably resilient for two children who have moved to a strange new place with a woman they barely know after their mother dies suddenly), and about the Oysterville Sewing Circle participants.

Instead, the novel focuses more on the love story between Caroline and her childhood friend Will, who is married to her best friend Sierra when Caroline arrives back home. Flashback scenes show how Will and Caroline met and bonded when they were barely teenagers, although their friendship transformed several years later when Sierra moved to town, and she and Will started dating. Within a few chapters of the current story, Will and Sierra's marriage is in trouble, then Sierra is gone and Will and Caroline are together. Despite the many years they knew each other it seems to happen within just a few pages. But the reader is supposed to be okay with that (view spoiler)

The domestic violence issues are presented honestly and for those who might not know anything about the dynamics it's an important topic to include. This isn't my favorite Susan Wiggs novel (that's probably The Apple Orchard), but it is still a quick rewarding (and somewhat frustrating) read.

ARC received from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I am a fan of Susan Wiggs and looked forward to reading The Oysterville Sewing Circle before knowing the summary. I was hooked on page one and had a hard time putting the book down. I received an ARC kindle version through Net Galley. Small town life and big city dreams collide. The three main characters have to reflect on their life choices and decide if they can accept past decisions. Add in a high powered model, her children, and a failing designer, along with a death and lives become entwined forever. Best friends reevaluate their relationships to each other and what needs to be done to be true to themselves. I was surprised to learn what the Oysterville Sewing Circle was really about. Women friendships, talents, and support through good times and bad, divorce, and abuse bind the women together. I highly recommend this book.

Aside from the appeal of a Pacific Northwest setting, I wasn't sure I would like this book. It was a bit predictable and "Hallmark Channel" for my taste. Add in the slightly over-the-top emphasis on the horrors of spousal/partner abuse and I was sure I would find the plot too simple and saccharin. There were a few moments where I just couldn't believe the coincidences and felt that some realities of life were ignored. I was wrong.

Susan Wiggs creates a loving family and a supportive circle of friends and the children who are the center of the story are portrayed with empathy and believable reactions and logical emotional growth. Wiggs also does a wonderful job of creating a setting that is real and comforting. Clearly she is very familiar with the coast of Washington and simply draws her readers into the sweet and almost idyllic life in the small coastal town of Oysterville. Yes, it really IS like that in the small coastal towns near Long Beach and Astoria, OR. There are a few surprises, and sometimes things aren't resolved quite as cleanly as expected, but (yes) everything works out in the end. So....definitely for the fans of "happily-ever-after" stories, but enough emotional/intellectual challenges that it should also appeal to fans of Nicholas Sparks. All-in-all a pleasant experience. I'll definitely look for more Susan Wiggs books.

Wings tackles the delicate issue of domestic violence with grace. I did wonder how victims of abuse in real life as well as the characters in the book would feel about a non-victim establishing a support group. It was admirable of her nonetheless. At a few points, it was an uncomfortable read but fiction can help bring difficult issues to light.

I received this book through NetGalley. My opinions are my own. This was an interesting read. I am glad to share it with others.

This book rating hovers between a 3 and a 4. Chick lit yes, but it had a good deal more depth to it than the average chick lit. Parts of the story were presented very well, believable; other parts, not so much. Caroline is from Oysterville, Washington, the epitome of small town. Interested in fashion and designing from an early age, she is admitted to fashion school in New York. A talented designer, she sees her design collection stolen by someone she used to work for. Along the way, she becomes good friends with a top-notch fashion model. When the model dies, Caroline takes the model's children and flees to the only safe place she knows, back to Oysterville. As she learns more about her friend's death, and realizes it was domestic abuse, she starts a local group for abused women, calling it the Oysterville Sewing Circle. As the group grows, so does Caroline's design business, and she taps into many of the Sewing Circle members' skills and talents.
Caroline's and Will's relationship rocks along. Friends since they were young, the relationship never seemed to move beyond friendship until Caroline arrives back home. Will is married to Sierra, Caroline's best friend, and Sierra is very unhappy in her marriage, as her career plans lead her to the big city.
The Oysterville Sewing Circle provided enjoyable reading about life in a small town with a dash of big city thrown in for good measure.

I will be reviewing this novel for the early August issue of Library Journal. Be Sure and see my complete review there