"The Moses Quilt" by Kathi Macias

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Moses Quilt is a contemporary novel that bridges racial and generational divides. With a realistic and compassionate look into a twenty-first-century dilemma, multiple award-winning author Kathi Macias introduces readers to a confused and apprehensive young woman, Mazie Hartford. Facing major decisions about the love of her life and her future, she must also wrestle with a nagging question about her family's past. She finds the answer to her questions in a most unexpected way—her great-grandmother's Moses quilt. As her great-grandmother begins to explain how each patch represents a story of courage and freedom, Mazie must decide if she has the courage and freedom to overcome her own personal fears and prejudices.

This is very slow-moving book. It starts with Mazie unable to give her boyfriend, Edward, an answer to his proposal. This was frustrating for me as on the second page it says, "Still, how could she give him an answer when she was sure about how the unknowns of her past might impact their future?" There is one big problem with that statement. At that point, according to everything I read in the book, there should have been no "unknowns" that she could know about that would give her pause in answering him. I went into this book "cold" (I was offered 3 books to review with nothing but titles and author's names), so I didn't know it was about inter-racial relationships before I started it. That made it frustrating because the author is lauded for taking on possibly controversial topics, but won't just come out and say that they are an inter-racial couple. You have to deduce that for yourself. I guessed fairly early on, but it was later in the book before it was finally confirmed. Mazie's mom and grandmother, Mimi, both love Edward and want them to get together, and HIS family is for it, too. It ended up leaving me irritated with Mazie. She obviously didn't have too much of an issue with his race or she wouldn't have been dating him in the first place. I just wanted to shake her and snap her out of whatever her problem was! Edward spends the book trying to love her and woo her, and trying not to admit that Mazie could have some prejudices down deep keeping her from accepting him, but at the end, he ends up having to over come HIS issues before they can move forward.

Mimi was the saving grace of this book. She was a jewel and I fell in love with her immediately! I grew up in the south and around quilting, so the portions of the book with Mimi, the quilt and Harriet Tubman's story I loved. The rest was just slow, sometimes boring and the rest of the time just frustrating! Mimi and the history of the quilt makes this book 3 stars.

I was given a free copy of this book by New Hope Publishers to read and review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.