The dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Lemmon

"a truly uplifting and very true story of how one woman set out to start a business and ended up preserving the dignity of so many women"

(the heading is a quote from Huffington Post)

Kamila has just finished her teaching degree when the Taliban take control in 1996. The Taliban quickly restricts the lives of women living in Kabul; they may no longer work or go to school. If they need to leave the house, they need a male relative with them.

Her brothers and father are forced to flee the family home to try to stay alive. Left behind are Kamila and her female relatives. To survive and somehow bring some money in, Kamila learns to sew and soon turns her new skills into a little business where she also engages other women in the local community. Using her teaching skills she starts a sewing school from her home. Once the women know how to sew, they are assigned work from real customers.

Amazingly, Kamila manages to employ almost one hundred friends and neighbours in her little business, without getting caught by the Taliban.

Comments

Beginning of Forever Catherine Bybee

Bybee has written another fab book in the D'Angelos series - great holiday read, perhaps even more so if you're heading to Italy and love wine! Amazing combination of romance, travel, independence, life experience and wine. Oh, and not to forget the Golden Girls!! This is the third book in the D'Angelos series - you really ought to read them all!! - and it'll be available at the end of June 2023. My review of the second book in the series, Be your everything , can be found ## here ##. #BeginningofForever #NetGalley

More Than Just Mum by Rebecca Smith

I'll happily pay for a 'mum breakdown service' Title: More Than Just Mum (More Than Just Mum, Book 1) Author: Rebecca Smith In the reviews by others, this book is described as an "absolutely hilarious, laugh out loud novel of family chaos and reinvention". I wasn't that enamoured with it. Sure, it made me smile from time to time, but it wasn't incredible. Hannah is the mum of Dylan, Scarlet and Benji. She's tired of being 'the mum of...'. and she's longingly looking back at a time when she was Hannah, not the MUM. She decides she needs to find a job she loves and earn a lot of money. To earn lots of money she decides she should become a writer, because they apparently all earn a lot of dosh. She has a particular niche in mind... "... might ask for advice about how to handle being forty-three years old, permanently strapped for cash and doing a job I hate while trying to deal with three exhausting kids. That’s the kind of breakdown ...

Dark Secrets on Dressmakers' Alley by Rosie Clarke

Dark Secrets on Dressmakers' Alley is the latest instalment in the gritty, historical saga series set in London's East End in 1924. It builds on the first book in the series "Dangerous Times on Dressmakers' Alley" with many of the characters returning and coming further to life. The girls are enjoying their work at Miss Susie's, the dressmaker's run by a former maid. Recently there has been a series of women being attached and robbed, even in broad daylight. The Police seem too busy (and somewhat incompetent) so the men of the Dressmakers' Alley create a rota to keep an eye on the area and to keep their wives, girlfriends and sisters safe. The story felt a bit darker than the previous one, and some of the novelty from the first book was now just part of the back story (a Lady designing dresses, a former maid running a business, the Women's Movement, etc). Dark Secrets on Dressmakers Alley by Rosie Clarke is available on 29 October 2024.

NetGalley Reviewer nix21230

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