The Knitting Circle

After the sudden loss of her only child, small daughter Stella, Mary Baxter is stunned, and finds each day a struggle to live through. In an attempt to fill the empty hours and lonely days, she joins a knitting circle, not knowing that the minute she walks through the door of Big Alice's Sit and Knit her life will change for ever.Alice, Scarlet, Lulu, Beth, Harriet and Ellen welcome Mary into their close circle despite her reluctance to open her heart to them. But as the weeks go on, they each reveal their own personal stories of love, tragedy and hope. Eventually, Mary is able to tell her own story of grief and in so doing faces hard truths and difficult choices.Ann Hood was born in Rhode Island, USA. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a degree in American Literature and worked as a flight attendant for TWA for 8 years. Whilst working as a flight attendant, Ann achieved a Master's degree from New York University. She lived in New York until 1993 when she re-met and married someone she knew in high school.

Ann then moved back to Rhode Island and had a son, Sam, who is now 13. Her daughter Grace died in 2002 when she was 5.

During the dreadful time after daughter Grace’s death, Ann learned how to knit, which she believes saved her life.

But it also introduced her to a new world of yarn and colours and textures and of people. Sitting in various knitting circles, she slowly learned that knitting had rescued other women too.

Bad marriages, illness, addiction knitting gave comfort and even hope through life's trials. This was the inspiration for her novel.

Ann now lives in Providence, Rhode Island with her husband and their children; son Sam, and their adopted daughter Annabelle.