Hanging by a Thread

Hanging by a Thread by Sophie Littlefield

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


2.5 stars.

Well, this was boring educational.


In 1932 in Winston, Clare’s great grandmother Alma was a newlywed about to have her first baby. She was a seamstress working on a wedding dress for a young girl when the girl’s fiancé, crazed by jealousy, came into her shop and shot them both. Alma lost her life because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but not before she gave birth to her daughter. As the baby grew, it became clear that she acquired a unique gift through the tragic circumstances of her birth. By touching pieces of clothing, she would sometimes have visions of people they belonged to, especially if those people were doing something they weren’t supposed to. The gift didn’t disappear with Alma’s daughter, it was transferred through generations, first to Clare’s eccentric grandmother, and then to Clare herself.

Winston seems like an idyllic little town, but for the last two years, something terrible has happened on Independence Day. Now that the big holiday is approaching again, people in Winston are starting to panic, convinced that a third tragedy is about to occur. Since Clare just recently moved back with her mom, she has no idea whom to trust or how serious the threat is. Then she accidentally finds a jacket that belonged to a missing girl, and she can’t avoid getting involved anymore.

At first, I was oddly intrigued by Littlefield’s many descriptions of clothing Clare made (I say oddly because I’m a conservative dresser and couldn’t care less about fashion experiments), so it took me a while to notice that I’d gone through a third of the book and that there still wasn’t a plot to speak of. Sure, I needed to know that Clare started a business with her friend and that she sells her clothes, but did I absolutely have to know all the details about her landlord and her stand? Same goes for many other things: it was perfectly fine to describe one or two items of clothing Clare salvaged and restyled, but after the seventh jacket and maybe the third purse, I admit to losing my patience just a teeny tiny bit. So when, on top of that, she started describing her vintage sewing machine in detail, with all the technical, incredibly boring things it can and cannot do, I was in danger of falling backwards from rolling my eyes too much. Woman, I couldn’t sew a button if my life depended on it, now can we please just move on?! Finally, around 35% mark, things start happening. We got two very exciting moments at a party, and then… pages and pages of seam-ripping tips.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by the way Clare’s gift was described and used. At first, the idea of psychometry limited to clothing alone sounded a bit silly and I didn’t think I’d believe/enjoy that part, but I thought it was handled pretty well and I ended up liking the idea very much.


I never really bought the relationship between Clare and Jack. It didn’t give me that creepy feeling instalove usually does, but I certainly didn’t understand where the attraction was coming from. Oh, I could see why she liked him: he had that gorgeous bad boy thing going on, but I never felt the chemistry between them at all, or not until the very end, at least.

I’m pretty sure this book will have many fans, as Littlefield’s books usually do, but I can’t honestly recommend it to anyone. It simply didn’t work for me, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t work for the rest of you. I can’t wait to compare notes with my friends since I fully expect to be the odd one out, just like I was with Aftertime.



Oh, and another small-ish thing: Joan Baez never rasped her way through a song in her life. She has one of the clearest voices in existence.