Annie Mae Knepp didn't expect to wait tables at a roadside
cafe. However, her father has started up a new,
controversial branch of Plain folks, and she bravely
decided to go her own way - which meant staying in the
community where she'd been raised. The traditional Amish
have opened their doors to her and her younger sister and
she's taken the job offered by Miriam Hooley.
BREATH OF SPRING starts on a busy spring morning as the
menfolk come to get hot food, the new preacher among them.
Adam Wagler, a carpenter and builder, notices Annie Mae
having difficulty reading the menu and gives her a pair of
reading glasses. She's always known her sight wasn't the
best, but her father thought she didn't need to focus in
order to cook and keep house. Now the letters jump into
clarity. What else will change?
This is an up to date story, full of gossip, chatter and
adaptation. Solar panels are newly being permitted to
charge up battery powered tools. However the rules say that
they may not be used for electrical lighting, or anything
else with wires. Good food is very much a part of life,
with the cafe being the centre of the Seasons Of The
Heart series - this is the fourth book.
Two months after her new life begins, while farmers wait to
have horses shod at the smithy, Annie Mae accepts a ride in
a sports car owned by a young man called Lonnie. While from
a Plain family, Lonnie has an outside job and looking at
the BMW's comfortable upholstery and satnav, Annie Mae
starts to realise that Lonnie will never take the adult
commitment to the church. However, she has a hard lesson
or two to learn about Lonnie... and about her father. Good
thing she has a friend like Adam Wagler, who turns up when
he's needed.
This fun tale is written in a different style to other
Amish books I've read; more forthright and full of natural
conversation. I was amused to see that Annie Mae's father's
vision of a new order includes a new, much younger wife.
Adam kept the motorbike he rode during his teenage days,
and he and Annie Mae take a ride on it, something that
doesn't happen in most of these stories. Try Charlotte
Hubbard's BREATH OF SPRING for a breath of fresh air - and
then try the scrumptious recipes at the back of the book.
As a bright season brings a fresh start to Willow Ridge,
Annie Mae Knepp feels she can never make peace with the
past. Her disgraced ex-bishop father is furious she has
taken her five siblings to live with her. She's never been
truly at home in her faith. . .or believing in herself. And
Annie Mae fears no man will want to take on the
responsibilities she's gladly shouldered.
True, her quiet neighbor Adam Wagler has been steadfast and
unshakeable helping her through her trials, but he surely
couldn't think of someone so lost as more than a friend.
Believing she is unworthy because of her doubts, Annie Mae
will find in a moment of surprising revelation that God can
work impossible miracles--and that love makes all things
new.
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