Love, responsibility, and God

This was a beautiful story of choice, kindness, grace, forgiveness, responsibility, guilt, and love all wrapped in the Amish community’s faith and lifestyle. It is a heartwarming, sweet and angsty story shown beautifully through the eyes of intense, strong and passionate characters. And phew it evoked so so many big feels. Elsie has moved to the Amish community of Bonduel, WI to live with her grandparents and work as a teacher. Mammi and Dawdi are excited to play matchmaker for Elsie despite her strong protests and her lack of desire for marriage currently. Elsie is a good teacher but she is also stubborn and speaks her mind. Sam is an Amish farmer who helps care for his ailing widowed mother and his four younger siblings. He has no interest in romance because of the amount of responsibilities on his plate. One of his brothers, Wally, was hurt in an accident three years ago and is missing part of his leg and hand. Elsie and Sam’s first interaction is when Sam goes to the school to yell at her for being mean to his crippled brother. Their interactions slowly become less contentious after that as they lovingly try to help Wally while also unexpectedly beginning to develop feelings for each other. The added complications of Sam’s neighbor/friend Rose and Elsie’s matchmaking Mammi add some delicious but frustrating mistaken identity and external angst to their relationship and result in a multi-character mess. To get to their HEA, Elsie and Sam (and Wally) will need to lean into their faith, unpack some baggage, and trust in kindness, love and honesty. As always with this author and her heartwarming Amish books, the story was well written and included engaging dialogue, thought provoking scenarios, three dimensional characters who grow, and a captivating storyline. I love this series.