The Wedding Dress: A Novel

by Virginia Ellis

Book Overview

"We began the dress on the last evening in October." For three sisters, it will become a banner of hope, spun from delicate memories of genteel tradition and woven with threads of possibility. Through... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345444825
• ISBN13: 9780345444820
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

An Unexpected Treasure

I loved this book. It's a romance that might be rated PG-13. Historical. A tad paranormal. Mostly a slice of life after the awful war that tore our country - the strength and love and human spirit that kept us going. Three sisters, Victoria, Julia, and Claire, are trying to keep things going on their Virginia plantation after the War Between the States. Victoria and Julia lost husbands to the war. So many men died, the youngest sister, Claire, is afraid that she'll never get married and have a family. To raise their spirits, the sisters start to make Claire a wedding dress. As the three work on the dress, they bring hope to the community, and the world brings hope to them. They are visited by Monroe, who came to tell Julia about serving under her husband... The book goes through about a year of ups and downs, laughs, growth, discovery, and contentment. Definitely a "keeper" you'll want to read again and again.

Lyrical Historical Novel

Reminiscent of a nineteenth-century journal, Ms. Ellis' tale of three sisters in 1865 Virginia is a nostalgic novel of war's devastation and triumphs. Young war widows Julia Atwater Lovejoy and Victoria Atwater Whitmore are determined to elevate the spirits of their seventeen-year-old sister Claire. They decide to spend their fall and winter days at Oak Creek Plantation piecing together a wedding dress for Claire with the hope that by spring, she will find a beau. The arrival of Sergeant Monroe Tacy, wartime friend of Julia's deceased husband, William, elevates the spirits of the elder Atwater women as they see in Monroe a potential husband for Claire or an escort to the women's Savannah cousins. But Monroe is more than the deliverer of a message from William as he helps the women of Oak Creek survive the winter with his hunting and repairing skills. As the approach of spring brings new surprises, the Atwater women prove that they are no simpering southern belles. This lyrical first person account of Julia's post Civil War life is enlightening of the emotional and physical repercussions of war without subduing the read with gory details. Ghostly images give an ethereal quality to this novel highlighting the value of family and friendships, proving that love can survive even amidst the most difficult of circumstances.

Wonderfully pictorial

Virginia Ellis has touched her novel with grace, that unforeseen gift that doesn't have to be deserved. The beauty of the coming together of victims of war is their ability to survive, forgive, and look for happiness once more. This novel would make a terrific movie.

Good summer reading for a light novel.

This is a wonderful book. This was my introduction to this author and I found her to be very good. Her story line was good and it kept the readers interest. Her writing style just flows and once in awhile she would come up with sentences that just "float". I highly recommend this book for light reading, yet informativ reading.

Beautiful & haunting with a message of hope.

The Wedding Dress is one of those books you read more than once and never forget. It's about loss and hope and the strength of women bound together by both. Ms. Ellis -- a war widow herself --has captured something very special here. She's shown the reader how in the wake of pain, life goes on. And healing happens.This is not a book you want to miss.