Even marrying for love can't guarantee happiness. Rebekah
Burkholder is a young widow with a child and a baby on the
way. Some of her good friends have also died too young, and
there is more than one handsome widower in Lancaster
County. Should she make AN AMISH MATCH again for the sake
of her children?
Second in the series called Amish Hearts by Jo Ann
Brown,
the inspirational romance tale faces up to life's more
unpleasant sides. For instance, Rebekah's late husband was
a good man - until he drank, when he became ill-tempered
and cruel. The Amish are not supposed to drink, and
Rebekah could not tell tales against her husband, so nobody
knew. But young Sammy is afraid of men, even pleasant ones
like Joshua Stoltzfus.
Joshua, with his own kinder and a bossy mother, is four
years widowed and runs a buggy-making shop. His Maam
reminds him that Rebekah can't manage her farm alone and
will have to sell up if she can't raise income. A match
between them would solve a lot of problems, and they are
grown now, so all the restrictive courting could be
dispensed with. But nobody has asked Rebekah's opinion.
We have to feel admiration for a widowed mother who decides
to go against society's expectations. Who wouldn't want to
run her own household, with the burden of a violent husband
lifted? And taking on a husband with three kinder would
make a lot of work for her. When Joshua comes calling in
his horse and buggy, noticing that the roof needs shingles
and farm buildings need work, he assumes a simple proposal
to his friend will make sense and she will see it as God's
plan. But Rebakah never considered remarrying. Joshua has
no right to tell her how to live! Despite this, the offer
does make sense to her. Could she cope with Joshua's
family, his moody young teenage son, his messy house; with
wedding a man she doesn't love? A man marrying out of duty.
The town of Paradise Springs, home to the Plain folk and
Englisch alike, is going to be a regular stopping off point
for me. I really enjoyed reading about an unusual heroine,
a strong woman who is pregnant and bereft from her marriage
to a weak man, and who has the chance to start life all
over again. AN AMISH MATCH by Jo Ann Brown is a fine
modern romance about timeless people.
With a baby on the way, a toddler son to care for and a
run-down farm, Amish widow Rebekah Burkholder is worried for
her family's future. So when a kind, hardworking Amish
widower with three children proposes marriage for sensible
reasons, Rebekah accepts. She'll oversee Joshua Stoltzfus's
household, be a loving mother to his children and try to
reach his rebellious teenager. Joshua will make a wonderful
father to her young son and the little one soon to be born.
But as Rebekah unexpectedly falls for her new husband, dare
she hope that Joshua will reopen his heart to love, too?