Infused with abundant warmth and wry humour, The Seamstress is a memorable tale of friendship and love between women. Jo narrates the story of her strong, passionate mother, Willa, whose gradual slide into dementia shifts them into a new and difficult relationship. Willa's life since arriving in Australia from Scotland as a young woman is re-created in vignettes: her spectacularly wrong choice in husband, the eccentricities of her family, the community of friends that sustain her, and her enduring capacity for joy. And in the telling, Jo also confronts her own life choices as a woman addicted to being perpetually worried about something or other. And certainly addicted to love.