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.