Prayers for Sale (Reading Group Gold) [Paperback]

Hennie Comfort knows she's getting old--she's 86--but she doesn't want to leave her mountain home of Middle Swan, Colorado, to go live with her daughter in Iowa. Still, there comes a time when Hennie figures she must face the facts and give in to her daughter's pleadings, so she sets the end of the year 1936 as the time when she'll begrudgingly move. But there's lots to be done in the months left, including befriending the new young neighbor, Nit Spindle, and working through some things Hennie's managed to set aside for many years. Thus kicks off Sandra Dallas's new novel, Prayers For Sale; sit back and let the story wash over you as the pages turn themselves.

Hennie's a real character, and a mainstay of the town since she came out seventy years before to marry Jake Comfort, sight unseen. Hennie's lifelong passion has been quilting, and just as she stitches quilts throughout the book, her own story unravels for Nit as she shares it with the lonely young woman. Hennie's figured out quite a bit about people in her long life, but she's still got a few things left to tend to before she leaves her home, and the friendship she develops with the much younger woman is the basis for the flashbacks into Hennie's life. The bond created between the two women is strong; centered around children both have lost, they find they can share each other's burdens over a quilting frame. Hennie doesn't actually offer prayers for sale, however; her prayers are frequent and fervent and she intervenes when necessary.

This is such a delightful tale with such strong, well-written characters that I hated to see it end. I could easily picture Hennie's dry sense of humor and her good will in trying to bring Nit into the town's social circle. In my mind's eye, I could see Hennie telling the stories as she worked over her "piecings", and I felt the same impact from them that Nit was experiencing. The ending is a bit of a surprise--not unwelcome, but surprising nonetheless. I was left smiling, knowing I will hold these dear people with me for a very long time. Highly recommended.

Comfort fiction, that's what I'd have to call it, so appropriate since the main character is named Hennie Comfort (formerly Ila Mae Stubbs Lloyd, but there's lots of name changing in this book!).

PRAYERS FOR SALE is not chick lit, romance, mystery (although there are a couple of foreshadowings and improbable surprises), definitely not action/adventure: Historical fiction, engaging and comforting, like homemade mac n' cheese or chicken pot pie. PRAYERS FOR SALE reminds me of a more adult version of Little House on the Prairie; although the story ends in 1936, during the Great Depression, it begins in 1864 and includes wagon trains, hardship, log cabins and subsistence living in a remote gold mining camp high in the mountains of Colorado.

Hennie Comfort is 86 years old and facing tough decisions about her life in Middle Swan, Colorado. Her adult daughter wants Hennie to come down off the mountain and live comfortably with her in Iowa. Mae wants to take care of her aging mother and to know that she is safe:

"Mae was right, Hennie admitted to herself. If she fell, the snow would cover her up, and nobody would know where she was until she melted out in the spring."

But Hennie has lived in Middle Swan for 70 years, since she came to the camp from White Pigeon, Tennessee, essentially a mail-order bride (heck of a blind date!) at the age of 16, after the loss of her young husband and baby daughter during the last days of the Civil War. (She married for love the first time at age 14 and was a widow and bereft young mother at 15.) Hennie doesn't want to leave her mountain life or her memories and stories.

A small sign on her fence, long-forgotten, brings 17-year-old Nit Spindle to Hennie's door: Prayers For Sale. Nit is new to town and suffering her own heartache after losing her baby at birth on the journey to Colorado from Kentucky. Nit asks Hennie to pray for her baby. Hennie takes to Nit and decides the girl needs her help to settle into the community and survive as a mountain woman, the wife of a dredge gold miner. A love for quilting and storytelling brings the two women together.

PRAYERS FOR SALE is a wonderful story about friendship and community, although not much happens in the present. Secrets hinted at the beginning (about Hennie's daughter Mae and Hennie's last unresolved secret), later revealed are anti-climactic and seem farfetched coincidences. The strength of this book is in the stories Hennie tells about the past, her own and others: tales of colorful characters and tragedy, lady luck and fallen ladies, mining, hardship, fortune and loss.

PRAYERS FOR SALE is comfort fiction, to be savored and enjoyed.

[...]

This is one of those "comfortable books" a book that draws you in, encourages you to sit a spell and totally immerse yourself in the story. The characters in this small mountain town in Colorado, Hennie, Nit, Dick, Tom, Monalisa and others are introduced by Sandra Dallas in a way that makes you feel that you could live right next door. This little mining town is bitterly cold more than half the year, and the dredge mining has taken it's toll, but the characters are warm and complex.

The novel takes place in 1936 during the Depression and is in the folksy local language of that time. The way she writes makes you just want to snuggle in and become part of this town and era, learning about the characters and their secrets. Most of this is done through Hennie, age 86 and her stories that she tells to Nit, a 17 year old young wife who has recently moved to the town with her husband for a job. The area can be unforgiving with it's cold winters, constant noise of the dredges and it's tight knit community, but Hennie takes an instant liking to Nit and feels protective toward her.

I hated to see this book end. It was a different sort of book than those I usually read, but I will look for Sandra Dallas's other books after reading this one.