The opening lines of this bittersweet novel are indicative of Violet Speedwell's whole existence at the time. Having lost her fiancé to the Great War years before, she was a thirty-eight-year-old "surplus woman" in England…always getting shushed and pushed aside. But her life starts to change when she joins a group of women who skillfully embroider kneelers for the magnificent cathedral in Winchester. A Single Thread is a beautifully woven story of friendship, love, and self-fulfillment.