Drug addictions, forced marriages, deadly accidents, a fall out with the church and spouses who disappear mysteriously. An Amish Love contains three lovely novellas, set in Amish country-side, with a big dash of the unexpected. The novellas are all tied to place and characters flit in and out of each separate story. The prominent themes are: alienation and love. This is a perfect book for my February I Heart Books Event. An Amish Love is a triple threat. Usually in acollection like this, there is at least one weak link. But all of these stories are really well done and enjoyable. Each is a treat on its own.
Take for instance the first novella: A Marriage of the Heart by Kelly Long. Joseph Lambert has been away from his Amish ways for several years and has come back to live with a local doctor. Abigail Kauffman, motherless, lonely and a beautiful flirt, sees a way out of her ‘boring’ Amish life that she no longer wants to be part of and she tricks him into marriage. Well, as the plot progresses in this really charming story, she comes to love her husband and slowly reveals to her father that she has always felt lonely and unloved and was deceitful in claiming Joseph made advances towards her before their marriage. Joseph carries his own secrets. When an ex-girlfriend shows up with a vial full of painkillers and an old hold on his heart, the relationship is tested.
In the second novella, What the Heart Sees, written by Kathleen Fuller, Ellie Chupp, who lost her sight in an accident, finds her jam business growing and her idenpendence tested with overprotective parents. Her friend is about to marry the young Amish man who is known to have been responsible for a deadly car accident. Ellie’s good friend is dead as a result and Ellie’s fiancee broke up with her, unable to handle her blindness. When Christopher Miller returns to town after being shunned, Ellie finds herself feeling romance again. But how could this individual love her, now that she is blind? And will Miller be able to forgive and return to the Amish life in time for his sister’s wedding?
And finally in Healing Hearts by Beth Wiseman, the father of a large brood returns home to his wife after being absent one year without explanation. While Naaman Lapp was not shunned, his family remains perplexed as to why he left. His son Adam is particularly angry and finds it difficult to forgive despite the Amish teachings. Naaman’s wife, Levina, has moved on and found a degree of independence despite the chatty gossip in town and the speculation that Naaman might have had another woman in Ohio. Eventually he will realize he needs to court his wife again and earn her trust back.
