DAYBREAK is book one in the Days of Redemption
series. Here you will meet the Keim family. While cleaning
out the storage area above their barn, deep family secrets
about the Keim grandparents are revealed. Neither are
willing to talk about it. The children and the grandchildren
are clearly upset, and to add to the stress, the family
learns their dad, Peter, is also hiding something! There
have been too many secrets, for too long. Will this destroy
their family bond? Will the community forgive them if they
find out the truth? Will Peter and Marie's love stay strong
as they face Peter's secret?
Viola Keim, Peter and Marie's daughter, works at the
Daybreak retirement home. She becomes close to Atle Swartz,
one of the residents, and learns his son is a missionary in
Nicaragua. Atle enjoys reading the letters he gets from his
son, and he reads each and every one of them to Viola. Some
of them, many times! Viola doesn't think it is right that
Edward put his Dad in a retirement home so he could go where
ever he wants to in the world. But, when Edward shows up to
visit his Dad, Viola realizes how wrong she is about Edward.
As she gets to know Edward better, she finds herself falling
for him. He feels the same way about Viola, but the
missionaries he works for, ask him to leave everything
behind and go to Belize for five years. What will he do? Can
he leave his father? What about Viola? They only just met,
but his feelings for her run deep. Does she feel the same
way?
DAYBREAK by Shelley Shepard Gray is a great start to the new
Days of Redemption series. You will laugh, maybe shed
some tears, be swept up in a growing romance, but most of
all you will be fascinated with one very unique Amish
family; a family that sure looks perfect and ordinary to
outsiders except sometimes the "simple life" is not so
simple after all. I'm so happy I have the second book, Ray
of Light, in my possession. Many questions were left
unanswered in DAYBREAK, and I'm anxious to see how the
grandparents handle their secret, and if they ever reveal
the details of it. I truly enjoyed every minute of DAYBREAK
and was sad that it ended, but I can't wait to read more by
Shelley Shepard Gray!
In this close-knit Amish family, nothing is as perfect as
it seems . . .
When Viola Keim starts working at a nearby Mennonite
retirement home, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with
resident Atle, whose only living relative, son Edward, is
living as a missionary in Nicaragua. Viola understands the
importance of mission work, but she can't imagine leaving
her father in the hands of strangers. Even though her family
is New Order Amish, it's not the Amish way, and though she
doesn't know Ed, she judges him for abandoning his father.
But when Ed surprises his father with a visit, Viola and Ed
both discover an attraction they never expected. Despite her
feelings, choosing Ed would mean moving to a far-off country
and leaving her family behind. She can't do that. Her twin
sister, Elsie, is going blind and will need someone to care
for her all her life. Her family is reeling with the recent
discovery that her grandmother hid her past as an
Englischer. Her father seems forgetful and
distracted—and to be harboring some secrets of his own.
Does Viola dare leave them all behind and forge her own
life? Or will family ties mean her one chance at love slips
away?