Morning Star Marketplace was established in a former disused stable building, by five competent, single young women. The Missouri Amish are enterprising and cheerful, as sales are breaking records in the approach to Christmas. From iced cookies to poinsettia plants to needlework, the stalls are winning customers from the wider community. CHRISTMAS COMES TO MORNING STAR continues the romances of the earlier books in the Maidels of Morning Star series.

Molly and Marietta Helfing work as hard as anyone, with a homemade noodle factory. The strong Marietta has recovered from cancer but expects it has put paid to her chances of marrying. That’s okay, she has her twin sister as a friend for life, and their noodle-making business. Aged in their thirties, they want to be financially independent.

Two of the local men admire these ladies. Pete Shetler, who has yet to commit to the faith and drives a truck for work, happens to think Molly is lovely. His Labrador dog, Riley, agrees. Widower Glenn Detweiler, his father, and his two little boys, one a nursing baby, are made homeless by a kitchen fire, but fortunately, nobody is harmed. The baby takes a bottle of goat’s milk which neighbours Marietta and Molly can provide. They also offer the Detweilers space in the rental houses on their farm. Glenn thinks Marietta would make a good wife, but while she likes him, she knows he asked another girl if he could court her recently. She’s not desperate.

There were so many stories to follow I got confused when Jo Fussner arrived and I asked, who is Jo again? She’s another of the maidels, unmarried women, and she likes Michael Wengerd, the potted plant grower, but her mother forbids them to meet and court. To my conventional way of thinking, it’s unlikely that a widowed mother can selfishly tell her daughter aged in her mid-thirties that she isn’t to date anyone. But the Amish Old Order holds to honouring the parents, even when it seems wrong. The kind bishop Jeremiah Shetler has a word to say on the subject. I expect Jo’s story will continue in the next book, Love Blooms in Morning Star.  Meanwhile, enjoy the run-up to Christmas, with hand-made gifts galore, and not a bauble in sight. 

Charlotte Hubbard has built a rounded community in the third of this likeable series, CHRISTMAS COMES TO MORNING STAR, featuring the good, the bad, and the snowy.