Needles and Pearls

March 22, 2010
A brief affair after the death of her philandering husband yields a surprising result for a shopkeeper in McNeil's warm and fuzzy sequel to The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club
. Jo Mackenzie's succeeded in rehabbing her Gran's wool shop in Broadgate, a lovely seaside town in England. Her Stitch and Bitch class is popular; her two young boys, Archie and Jack, have settled in; and her Gran's getting married. But Jo's liaison with Daniel Fitzgerald, a globe-trotting photographer, has ended, leaving Jo to sort out what's next. Big changes and a bevy of stressful obstacles test her mettle and reorder her world. Will Martin Trent, the newly divorced son of her Gran's friend, be a part of it? It's a little on the chatty side, but McNeil spins a comfy, hopeful yarn with believable characters.

April 15, 2010
The sequel to The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club (2009) opens on the one-year anniversary of the death of Nick, Jo Mackenzies unfaithful husband and the father of her two boys, Jack and Archie. Jo is forced to endure her in-laws for a trip to Nicks grave, but otherwise things are looking up: both her grandmother and her best friend are newly engaged, and Jo is still happily working in her grandmothers yarn shop and running the Stitch and Bitch club. Theres even a potential love interest in the picture: Martin, the handsome but awkward son of a woman who works at the yarn shop with Jo. But the budding romanceand Jos life overallis turned on its head when Jo finds out shes pregnant as a result of a one-night stand with a photographer in Venice. Readers looking for a tightly woven story might be frustrated by the many scenes of Jos kids acting up, but overall this is a fun follow-up to McNeils first entry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)