A Silken Thread by Kim Vogel Sawyer

I received an advance reader copy of A Silken Thread from Waterbrook, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC, in exchange for an honest review.

A Silken Thread was about Laurel Millard and her plans to capture a wealthy suitor who can afford care for her mother and give Laurel the life she dreams about.  She gets hired as a silk weaver at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition of 1895, and works at a loom most of the day, making lengths of silk for display and educational purposes aimed at the visitors to the Silk Room at the Exposition.

Laurel meets Willie Sharp, a security guard at the exposition,  Langdon Rochester, the son of the owner of Rochester Steam Engines company, and a few young women who work with her in the Silk Room, giving guided tours of that area.  She also meets Quincy, a friend of Willie’s, who is hired as a groundskeeper at the exposition.

The book is well written, and the characters all connect nicely with each other.  Mrs. Sawyer is skilled in blending the stories of each person into a good, solid historical fiction tale, which keeps the reader interested and engaged.   I thoroughly appreciated her use of the King James bible when she wrote Scriptures into the stories, and she placed them appropriately.  They added so much value to the whole book.    I also liked the information about the Cotton Exposition, how the grounds were described in detail, which gave me a good picture of what they must have looked like.

Mrs. Sawyer dealt with racism in the book, too.  In my opinion, she portrayed one character in particular well, and gave him insightful thought processing, which helped him overcome some things.  Each character, really, matured and became more experienced in their views of life, and how people act.  I liked the book, and do recommend it to anyone wanting a clean historical fiction story, with very little romance in it, and a LOT of substance!