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A Sweet Diverse Reads Holiday Novella


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Earth�s Door is a brilliant blend of fantasy and sci-fi with masterful world-building and rich character development that will leave readers tearing through the pages. Breakout author PJ Dudek has written a captivating story that fans of Stranger Things, Terry Brooks, James Islington, and Brandon Sanderson are sure to love!


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A gripping time-travel tale set on a pirate ship in 1727 and in the gaslit streets of the Prohibition.


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A demon seeks to destroy all. Can she stop him?


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Two restless souls, one wild Christmas on the ranch�where sparks fly, and dreams ride free.


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From jilted bride to fake-fianc�e: falling for the bad boy was not part of the plan!


An Amish Family Christmas

An Amish Family Christmas, November 2014
by Patricia Davids, Marta Perry

Harlequin Love Inspired
Featuring: Sally Yoder; Susannah Miller; Toby Unger
224 pages
ISBN: 0373879202
EAN: 9780373879205
Kindle: B00K9ZWK2C
Paperback / e-Book
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"Amish Couples Reunited By Circumstance"

Fresh Fiction Review

An Amish Family Christmas
Patricia Davids, Marta Perry

Reviewed by Susan Dyer
Posted February 22, 2015

Holiday | Romance Contemporary | Amish

Two of my favorite authors have come together in the spirit of Christmas. AN AMISH FAMILY CHRISTMAS is a wonderful way to spend the day, just you, your couch, a blanket, and this wonderful and heartwarming book. The stories are sweet and filled with love and simpler times. Two novellas' by two different authors but blended together by taking place in an Amish community at Christmas time. Heart Of Christmas by Marta Perry is the story of Susannah Miller and her one room Amish school house in Pine Creek. She has been the teacher for twelve years and is planning the Christmas program when a surprise walks through her door. Tobias Unger and his children have just come in and she wishes she could just disappear. Tobias left Pine Creek years ago, only a month before he was supposed to marry Susannah. Why oh why did he return? Can Susannah handle being a teacher to his children? Can Susannah and Toby work on the school's Christmas program together for the benefit of his children's emotional healing? Will this couples' past heal or will their time together cause more problems for both of them? A PLAIN HOLIDAY by Patricia David's is where we find Sally Yoder, who becomes a nanny for Kimi and Ryder Higgins, a rebellious teen and an impressionable eight-year-old, in Cincinnati, Ohio, during her rumspringa. Feeling too bold for Amish life, she's not sure she'll ever be baptized in the faith she was raised. Even though she misses her family, Amish life may never suit her outspoken ways. Ben Lapp assumes he is rid of that pesky girl who followed him everywhere in Hope Springs, Ohio, when he moves away to work on an Englisch farm. When the two Higgins children, along with their nanny, are sent on a Christmas vacation on the farm where Ben works, he's not sure he'll survive being around Sally Yoder again. Now he's even more surprised by her reaction to him and by how much she has changed. A sleigh ride to get a Christmas tree and to visit their Amish great-grandmother endangers all their lives in a blizzard and their hearts in the aftermath. Will opposites attract when the stars and holiday cheer light their way? AN AMISH FAMILY CHRISTMAS is just perfect for those who only have a little bit of time to read or if they don't want to get involved in a book in that limited time frame. I found that these novella's were the perfect length to read when it was too late to read any other book before bed, and yet I didn't feel as if I was missing something. There was just enough detail to make the stories feel as if they were full of detail without feeling as if anything was being left out. Both stories tell of the real meaning of Christmas and the Amish beliefs in their quiet and happy lives. I highly recommend this book to everyone loving a good heartwarming story, written by two lovely Christian ladies. I always feel so happy after reading a book written by Marta Perry or Patricia Davids.

Learn more about An Amish Family Christmas

SUMMARY

Amish teacher Susannah Miller suddenly has two new students: the children of her former love. Widowed father Toby Unger broke Susannah's heart ten years ago, but now the handsome Amish man desperately needs help with his troubled little ones. Can the joy of the season reunite two lonely hearts in time for Christmas? Outspoken nanny Sally Yoder left her Amish community for her rumspringa. Though her heart is back home, the Amish man she loves, Ben Lapp, will never love a bold woman like her. But when a snowstorm strands her, her young charges and Ben on a remote farm at Christmastime, they both might discover that love is the true holiday spirit.

Excerpt

Chapter One Susannah Miller stood behind the security of her teacher’s desk, watching the departure of school board member James Keim and his wife, and wondering if her annual Christmas program was going to spell the end of her job as teacher at the Pine Creek Amish School. The hollow feeling in her stomach brought on by Keim’s complaints lingered even after the door had closed behind him. Too worldly? What would make the Keims think there was anything worldly about the Amish school’s Christmas program? The program celebrated typical Amish values and attitudes toward the birth of Christ. It had always been the highlight of the school year for her scholars and their families in this small valley community in central Pennsylvania. Susannah stiffened her spine. It still would be, if she had anything to say about it. She glanced around the simple, one-room schoolhouse that had become so precious to her over the past twelve years. Everything from the plain green shades on the windows to the sturdy wooden desks to the encouraging sayings posted on the wall declared that this was an Amish school, dedicated to educating kinder for life in an Amish community. Becky Shuler, Susannah’s best friend since childhood, abandoned the pretense she’d been making of arranging books on the bookshelves. She hurried over to put her arm around Susannah’s waist. “Ach, Susannah, it wonders me you don’t look more upset. I’d be throwing something, if I had to put up with James Keim’s criticisms. The nerve of the man, coming in here and complaining about your Christmas program before he’s even seen it.” Susannah shook her head, managing a smile. “I’m not upset.” Or at least, she had no intention of showing what she was feeling. Becky was her dearest friend in the world, but she knew as well as anyone that Becky couldn’t keep herself from talking, especially when she was indignant on behalf of those she loved. “Well, you should be.” Becky’s round cheeks were even rosier than usual, and her brown eyes snapped with indignation. “The Keims have only lived here less than two years, and he thinks he should tell everyone else how to live Amish. How he even got on the school board is a mystery to me.” Shrugging, Susannah closed the grade book she’d been working on when the Keims had appeared at the end of the school day. “Komm, Becky. You know as well as I do that folks don’t exactly line up to volunteer to be on the school board. James Keim had been willing, even eager.” “That’s certain sure.” Becky’s flashing eyes proclaimed that she was not going to be talked out of her temper so easily. “He was only eager to serve because he wants to make our school into a copy of the one where they lived in Ohio. All I can say is that if he liked Ohio so much, he should have stayed there instead of coming here and bothering us.” Susannah suspected that was by no means all Becky had to say, and she’d have to do her best to head Becky off before she made a difficult situation worse. “Becky, you know you shouldn’t talk that way about a brother in the faith. It’s not kind.” “But it’s true.” Becky was irrepressible. “You of all people know what a thorn in the side he’s been. Ach, you know I wouldn’t say these things to anyone but you.” “It would be best not to say them at all. James Keim has his own ideas of what an Amish school should be like. He’s entitled to his opinion.” Based on his disapproving comments, Susannah suspected that Keim’s previous community had been more conservative than Pine Creek, Pennsylvania. Amish churches varied from place to place, according to their membership and their bishops. Pine Creek, being a daughter church to Lancaster County, was probably a bit less stringent than what Keim had been used to. “You’re too kind, that’s what you are,” Becky declared, planting her fists on the edge of the desk. “You know perfectly well that he’d like to see his daughter Mary taking your place as teacher, so he could boss her around all he wanted.” Susannah shook her head, but she had to admit there was some truth to what Becky said. As a thirty-year-old maidal who’d been teaching for a dozen years, Susannah wasn’t easily cowed, at least not when it came to her classroom and the young scholars who were like her own children. Young Mary would probably be another story, easily influenced by her father’s powerful personality. “I don’t think Mary Keim has much interest in teaching from what I’ve seen,” she said, determined to deflect Becky’s ire. Picking up the cardboard box that held Christmas program materials, Susannah set it on the desk. “If we’re going to work on the program this afternoon, we’d better get started.” Becky shook her head gloomily. “Mary might not want to teach, but she’d never stand up to her daad. You’re not going to let her help with the Christmas program, are you? She’d just be spying on you and reporting to him.” “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she said. “Maybe she won’t offer.” Parents and older siblings often did volunteer to help with the Christmas program, but perhaps Mary wouldn’t. Susannah pulled the tape from the box lid, sure that would divert Becky’s attention. Becky grabbed the flap and pulled the box open, her smile saying she knew Susannah was trying to distract her. “Just one more thing, and then I’ll stop, I promise. You’re not to pay any heed to Keim’s nasty comment about you not understanding the kinder because you’re unmarried, all right?” “All right.” That was an easy promise to make. One thing she’d never had cause to question was her feelings for her scholars. “After all, it’s not as if you couldn’t have married if you’d wanted to.” Becky dived into the box and pulled out a handful of paper stars. “Even after Toby left—“ She stopped abruptly, looking as if she wanted to stuff the stars into her mouth to keep herself still. Her cheeks flamed. “Susannah, I’m sorry, I—“ “Forget it.” Susannah forced her smile to remain, despite the jolt in her stomach at the mention of Toby’s name. “I have.” That was a lie, of course, and one she should repent of, she supposed. Still, the gut Lord could hardly expect her to go around parading her feelings about the childhood sweetheart who had deserted her a month before their wedding was supposed to take place. “Have you? Really?” Becky clasped her hand, her brown eyes suddenly swimming with tears. “Of course I have,” she said with all the firmness she could muster. “It was ten years ago. My disappointment has long since been forgiven and forgotten. I wish Toby well.” Did she? She tried to, of course. Forgiveness was an integral part of being Amish. But saying she forgave hadn’t seemed to mend the tear in her heart. “Well, I wish Tobias Unger was here right now so I could give him a piece of my mind,” Becky declared. “He left so fast nobody had a change to tell him how ferhoodled he was being. And then his getting married out in Ohio to someone he barely knew…well, like I said, he was just plain foolish.” News of Toby had filtered back to Pine Creek after he’d left, naturally, since his family still lived here. Everyone knew he’d married someone else within a year of leaving, just as they’d heard about the births of his two children and about his wife’s death last year. His mother had gone out to help with the children for a time, and she’d returned saying that Toby and the kinder really ought to move back home. But he hadn’t, to Susannah’s relief. She wasn’t sure how she’d cope with seeing him all the time. “Forget about him,” she said. “Let’s talk about how we’re going to arrange the room for the Christmas program. I have some new ideas.” “You always have ideas,” Becky said, apparently ready to let go of the sensitive subject. “I don’t know how you keep coming up with something new every year for the Christmas program.” “Ach, there’s always something new to find in Christmas.” Susannah felt a bubble of excitement rising in her at the thought of the much-loved season. “Maybe because we all feel like kinder again, ain’t so?” “I suppose so.” Becky’s color had returned to normal, and her eyes sparkled. “Thomas and the twins have been whispering together for weeks now. I think they’re planning a Christmas surprise for me.” “Of course they are. That’s what Christmas is, after all. God’s greatest surprise of all for us.” Susannah swung away from the desk, looking around the room. “What do you think about making the schoolroom itself surprising when folks come in? Maybe instead of having the scholars all presenting in the front, we could turn everything sideways. That would give the kinder more space.” She walked back through the rows of desks, flinging out her arms to gesture. “You see, if the audience faced this way—“ The door of the one-room school opened suddenly, interrupting her words. Susannah’s heart jolted, and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She must be imagining things. Surely she was dreaming it. The man standing in the schoolhouse doorway wasn’t…couldn’t possibly be…Toby Unger.


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