Once again I wish for 1/2 stars, then I could give this book 3 1/2 stars. There were several things I really liked about this book: the themes; friendship, forgiveness, love, and faith. There aren't many books anymore that, without being preachy, have sort of an underlying religious current going on.
I enjoyed the characters, particularly Hennie, the main character. I loved that she was always looking to help someone. (Thus the Prayers for Sale--they didn't really cost money).
The book was se More...

So after checking this out for the 3rd time to try to finish this book I can sum it up in a few good quotes from the book. It was a very slow read. I’m so happy I finally finished it. But I couldn’t just let this one go. The book was about an elderly lady living in a mining town helping others through their life. It was about how forgiveness heals your soul as well as the other person’s soul.

Very misleading title-Prayers for sale (a sign outside her home, the meaning behind it) - I was so happy More...

Sandra Dallas' novel takes its title from a sign on Hennie Comfort's fence, carved when she was "so happy that she had prayers for sale, since there was nothing to ask for." Hennie is an 86-year-old twice-widowed woman living in a small mining town called Middle Swan, Colorado, during the Great Depression.

The "prayers for sale" sign brings Nit Spindle, a 17-year-old newlywed girl, to Hennie's door, requesting a prayer for her stillborn daughter Effie. The two women become fast friends, and Henni More...

I'm usually able to get through a book fairly quickly... but this one just kind of stumped me. I couldn't get into it. I know there were so many people who liked this one... but I just wasn't a fan.

I think part of my problem was that I just didn't like Hennie. She's telling Nit these stories to help her adjust to living in her new home... but the stories are DEPRESSING!! "This woman left her husband and that father killed his own baby and this person died and that baby died and this person comm More...

Prayers for Sale is the story of a friendship between Hattie Comfort and Nit Spindle in a small mining town in Colorado in the early to mid twentieth century. Hattie has lived in Middle Swan, CO for seventy years. She has had a long and mostly fulfilling life in the mining town, however her daughter has been pressuring her to move in with her in her home on the Mississippi River in Iowa. When Hattie meets young newlywed, Nit Spindle, she befriends the girl and helps her adjust to life in the har More...

After having read and enjoyed this author's "True Sisters" so much, I got a couple of her earlier books out of the library. This one centers around an 86-year-old widow living in a small mining town in the mountains of Colorado in 1936, and flashes back to her coming West in a covered wagon after the death of her first husband in the Civil War. Over the course of a summer and autumn, Hennie tells her life story to her new young neighbor Nit Spindle (what a name...), and what a story it is! If yo More...

A very good read and written by my former landlord Sandra Dallas! I so enjoyed this book which takes place in a town modeled after Breckenridge, CO. Sandra is a well known writer of Western literature and does a great job researching so in addition to engaging characters, you learn a thing or two about life in a mining town 'back in the day.' The Good Reads description below is pretty accurate. Enjoy!

Hennie Comfort is eighty-six and has lived in the mountains of Middle Swan, Colorado since befo More...

I read it for my August LIT group meeting, and I liked it very much. Principal setting is Colorado in depression 1936, way up in the thin-aired, cold, but stunning mountains of the gold mining country. The two principal characters are beautifully drawn: 86-year old intrepid,unforgettable twice-widowed "Hennie" who came to the area from Tennessee 70 years ago (and we learn much about her past), and the newcomer to the area, the young wife Nit who recently arrived from Kentucky with her husband. T More...

I have been looking for another good book for some months and I finally found it. Inbetween, I have been reading 11/22/63 by Steven King, but it is a very large book and some times I just want a small easy to hold one. This is it!

On June Ahern's(Author of The Skye in June, which was a great book and I gave it 5 stars) recommendation I decided to read it. It was charming, Prayers for Sale got me on the first page and I stayed with it right to the end and I was very sorry that it ended.

Hennie Comf More...

Widow Hennie Comfort is eighty and six years old and is faced with the fact that she is old - too old to be living alone in her mountain home in a mining town of Middle Swan, Colorado. Her only child, a daughter wants her mother to live with her in Iowa and Hennie is reluctant. Still, she knows that another winter in the mountains will be too hard on her, so she’s made up her mind at the end of the year to move-in with her daughter. It’s within that year the story, set in 1936 during the Great D More...

"Hennie chuckled. "That's another story, but its a short one, and I'll tell it. Jake and I had been married three or four years when I told him I was so happy that I nothing else to pray for. 'Why," says I, 'I've got prayers to sell' He was so tickled by what I said that he made the sign for me and nailed it to the fence . It was joke, but every now and then somebody like you comes along asking for prayers, and like I told you, no money will buy them, but I'm happy to say them for free. I've nev More...

This book completely filled me with the joy of female friendships, courage and resilience in hard times, the beauty and power of story-telling and life experienced in a time period and location I'll never know on my own.

Hennie Comfort, an 86 year old woman, has lived in the mountains of Middle Swan, Colorado since before it was Colorado.

Nit Spindle is just 17 years old and newly married. She and her husband have recently moved to the high country in search of work. It's 1936 and the depression More...

Set in 1936, with the Great Depression having taken its toll, Prayers for Sale is the story of a unique intergenerational friendship, forgiveness, healing. The central character, 86-year-old Hennie Comfort, has lived in Middle Swan, in the high country of the Rocky Mountains, since before CO became a state. When she first meets 17-year-old Nit Spindle, a newcomer whose husband has taken a job in the local gold mine, Hennie is drawn to the young, lonely, isolated girl who is grieving. The harsh c More...

This is by far one of the better books I've read over the past couple of months and will definitely be one of my favorites. This was also the first book that I’ve read that was written by Sandra Dallas and I expect to read more of her work for she has mastered the art of storytelling as far as I’m concerned.

This is a story of 2 women (86 year old Hennie Comfort and 17 year old Nit Spindle) who develop an unlikely friendship after the younger of the two arrives in Colorado from Kentucky, accompan More...

Audio book read by Maggi-Meg Reed
2.5**

The novel is set in a small Colorado mining town, high in the Rockies, during the Depression-era. Hennie Comfort is an 86-year-old widow who has lived in Middle Swan since shortly after the Civil War. 17-year-old Nit Spindle is newly arrived with her husband from Kentucky. The young girl sees a sign in Hennie’s yard – “Prayers for Sale” – and gets the courage to ask for a prayer. Thus begins a friendship, and the old woman’s mission to get the young girl set More...

I think this is my favorite of her books, but I'm not sure why. The main character is an elderly woman who befriends a very young woman who moves into the high mountain mining town. As she befriends the younger woman and helps her adjust to this new life, she tells stories of her past and stories of people she's known. I've never been a fan of short stories, there's never enough either to get me hooked or if I am hooked, then I'm disgusted when they end quickly, but this manner of short stories More...

This book took me a long time to read. It wasn’t a book that you would stay up all night to read to get to the next chapter. I would read a chapter here and there. After reading it I wasn’t inspired by the tragic one after the other stories about her life. I must admit that after reading the first couple chapters, I didn’t think I could finish the book. The author, Sandra Dallas, uses way too much shock value when she writes. I found it hard reading about the loss of Hennie’s family, the death o More...

Oh lord, I hated this book...it was so good. I cried and remembered and cried. Thank god, it had an ending with which I could live.

Arriving fresh in Middle Swan, a mining camp in the Colorado Rockies, from tragedy after the Civil War, Ila Mae, as she was then known, has come to Middle Swan to possibly marry a friend of her childhood friend. We learn of Hennie's 70 years in Middle Swan while Hennie is in her last year there when she befriends Nit Spindle, a young newlywed who has followed her equ More...

Eighty-six-year-old Hennie Comfort lives up in the high country of the Rocky Mountains in 1936. Hennie has lived in Middle Swan, Colorado, since before Colorado was named.

Hennie meets seventeen-year-old Nit Spindle after Nit sees a sign out front of Hennie’s house that says: “Prayers for Sale”. Hennie doesn’t charge for prayers but she’ll say one for anyone. Young Nit is a lonely girl so Hennie invites her into her home and discovers her husband has come to look for work in the small mining town More...

Set in Colorado during the Great Depression, Prayers for Sale is the story of friendship, secrets, heartache, and life in the mountains. Octogenarian Hennie Comfort befriends 17-year-old newlywed Nit Spindle when Hennie’s life is at a crossroads. Hennie is 86 years old and physically cannot stay on the mountain for another winter. Her daughter in Iowa has offered her a room in her home; however, Hennie’s heart is not sure it can live away from her beloved home and favorite trails. Hennie knows t More...

The year is 1935 and 86 year old Hennie Comfort has lived in a mountain gold mining town for the last 70 years. Her daughter thinks it is time that she comes "down the mountain" to live with her. While Hennie is treasuring her last months on the mountain she meets 17 year old Nit Spindle, who has just moved here with her husband. Nit Spindle is in need of some prayers and a friend. Hennie is there for her and over the next 9 months, over some quiltin' and coffee she passes on her stories and adv More...

It's 1936 and the Great Depression has taken its toll. ighty-six-year-old Hennie Comfort has lived in Middle Swan, CO - up in the high country of the snow-covered Rocky Mountains - since before it was Colorado. When she first meets 17-year old Nit Spindle, Hennie is drawn to the young grieving girl. Nit and her husband have come to this small mining town in search of work, but the loneliness and loss Nit feels are almost too much to bear. One day she notices an old sign that reads, "Prayers for More...

This was a very interesting book not only because I am a quilter but it told a lovely story. The main characters Hennie and Nit become fast friends. Hennie is 86 and Nit is very young and a new member to the Swan community. Based at a dregding camp in Colorado things could not be more rural and basic. Hard working men who risk their lives daily on the dredge come home to equally hard working homemakers. Hennie befriends the newcomer Nit and the two become instant friends bound together by their More...

Prayers for Sale, written by Sandra Dallas happens during the early 20th century where many areas are suffering from depression. It talks about a 17-year old teenager, Nit who has just married. She and her husband moves to the high country in search for a job. They have been suffering largely being unemployed, low on incomes, so they decided to go to another area to search for opportunities. After moving into the new area, Nit notices this woman who has prayers for sale, she didn't understand bu More...

Terrible. Just terrible. I would ban this book if I could, and not because of the actual content. It’s because the writing is so simplistic, it upset any semblance of literary-ness (I’m so upset, I can’t think of actual words).

[Full disclosure: I was specifically looking for a light and quick read. I guess I got one, although I’ve read light reads that didn’t insult my intelligence like this.)

My main complaint is Dallas left nothing to the imagination. Anything that had a semblance of symbolism, More...

I read this book when I found out it had one of the characters from The Diary of Mattie Spenser in it, and while it's not a sequel, per se, it does bring some closure to that storyline as well as introduce another collection of characters that jump right to life. While The Diary of Mattie Spenser was more engaging as a story, Prayers for Sale has a whole different feel to it that is very special. It is told as if one was sitting in a sewing circle (a quilting circle, to be more specific), listen More...

I'm having a hard time deciding between 3 or 4 stars. I didn't like the way this book was written (the main character has a story for everything so it goes back and forth between their current time and things she remembers from her past). For some reason I didn't feel like it flowed very well but I did enjoy the story overall.

One of the main themes throughout the story is quilting and I loved this quote, "A quilt circle's like a crazy quilt. You got all kinds in it. Some members are the big pie More...

I really enjoyed this book! It didn't have a discernible plot, which usually drives me crazy, but I think the novelty of the setting and characters made up for it.

The story is primarily about an 86 yr. old woman, Hennie, who has lived through the civil war, WWI and the Great Depression. She was born, raised and married in Tennessee, and later moved to Middle Swan, Colorado, a mining town 10,000 feet up the mountains. The secondary character is Nit Spindle, a young wife who has just arrived in to More...

The stories, that is what draws you into this wonderful book. The stories that are weaved into present day and links you to the past. Hennie is eighty-seven years old and she's experienced pretty much everything life can throw at a person: husband dying in the Civil War, brutality at the hands of a cruel man, losing her only child, living in harsh conditions, becoming a widow for the second time. She posts a sign on her fence out front that says, "Prayers for Sale." There's a story behind this s More...

I liked this book, but was expecting more from the reviews that I had read and from the fact that Barnes and Noble was really pushing its sales. The theme of the book is friendship and how it can take you by surprise at unexpected moments. The main character is Hennie Comfort, an 86 year old woman, who has lived in Middle Swan, Colorado since before it was a state. She befriends a young woman, Nit, who moved into the mining camp with her husband in 1936 during the height of the Depression. Linke More...