The Fortune Quilt

Carly McKay's life is going just fine until she produces a television piece on psychic quilt maker Brandywine Seaver and receives a quilt with an enigmatic reading telling her that everything is about to change. And it does. She loses her job and her best friend (who proclaims his unrequited love for her). And her mother, who deserted the family seventeen years ago, returns, sending Carly into a serious tilt.

Convinced it's the quilt's fault, Carly races down to the small artists' community of Bilby, Arizona, to confront its maker, and ends up renting a cabin from her. Carly even starts to enjoy her reimagined life, until her old life comes calling. Now Carly has to decide what parts of each world she wants to patchwork in...and how much she's willing to leave to fate.

"This vibrant novel from Rich (The Comeback Kiss) shows that chick lit can deal intelligently with fate, family issues and romantic relationships. Carly McKay, a 29-year-old TV producer in Tucson, Ariz., comes from a loving Catholic family — a great dad and two sisters — all of whom have been scarred by the wife and mom who abandoned them 17 years earlier. On assignment from Tucson Today, Carly travels to Bilby, a small town revitalized by a thriving artist community, to interview Brandywine Seaver, a hip psychic quilt maker. Brandy gives skeptical Carly a quilt and a reading, telling her that her mother's not dead and that '[e]verything's about to change.' When her mother's shocking return confirms Brandy's reading and she also loses her job, an angry Carly returns to Bilby to give back the 'Quilt of Evil.' She ends up staying in order to reimagine her life, and in the process discovers new love and the courage to take charge of her destiny." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Lani Diane Rich lives with her husband and children. Author website: lanidianerich.com.