rating: 4 of 5 stars When I need an escape or a good chuckle When I need a reminder that today’s annoyances will be tomorrow’s laughter, that God has a purpose in every exasperating and embarrassing situation, I pick up Mary.
She never fails to supply exactly what I need.
Her characters are upright respectable citizens yet full of endearing flaws, driven to do right yet completely ignorant of each other’s needs.
Wonderful!
rating: 4 of 5 stars After receiving a desperate and confusing call from her sister, Hannah Lapp reluctantly returns to the Old Order Amish community of her Pennsylvania childhood.
Having left Owl's Perch more than two years earlier, she finally has settled into a satisfying role in the Englisher world. Hannah has found love and a new family with the wealthy Martin Palmer and the children she is helping him raise; and her life-long dream of being part of the medical community is being realized. But almost immediately after her arrival, the disapproval of those who ostracized her, including her headstrong father, reopens old wounds.
As Hannah is thrown together with former fiance Paul Waddell to work for her sister Sarah's mental health, hidden truths surface about events during Hannah's absense, and she faces and agonizing decision. Will she choose the Englisher world and the man who restored her hope, or will she heed the call to return to the Plain life--and perhaps to her first love?
(back cover copy of "When Mends the Soul")
This is a wonderful conclusion to a great Amish trilogy. I'd sworn off Amish-centered novels, but Woodsmall won my heart back.
After reading the first two in the Sisters of the Quilt series and truly loving them, I held little hope that it would end well. What can I say? I'm not very optimistic when it comes to Amish settings.
But Woodsmall proved me wrong. I carried Hannah, Martin, and Paul around in my heart long after I turned the last page.
The scandalous life and ultimate redemption of “the woman at the well” is story familiar to many Christians around the world, but never has it been told in such a way as you’ll find in “Journey to the Well.”
The basic plot is no mystery. “You have had five husbands…and this man that you have now is not your husband,” Jesus said. It’s what’s left to the imagination that prompted Diana W. Taylor to create a novel about rejection, shame, and the hope Christ brings.
Marah, a girl having just come of age, is married off to the first man willing to fill her benefactor’s greedy coffers. Torn from her childhood friend and sweetheart, Jesse, Marah is forced to enter a world of misery with the first of five husbands.
Life has few kindnesses to offer Marah. Loss, grief, and censure are her constant companions. That is until the day, she returns to Jacob’s well…
“Journey to the Well” is based on one of the many Biblical accounts that has always intrigued me. Why would a woman ever have five husbands? What kind of horrible sins much Jesus have forgiven? What a desperately lonely person she must have been! These are the questions that fill the pages of this absorbing book.
Marah’s continuous struggles reminded me of Elizabeth’s in Jerry Jenkin’s “Though None Go with Me”, although I might add (to Diana W. Taylor’s benefit) that Marah’s journey gave me a greater sense of hope than Elizabeth’s.
After husband number four, I began to grow listless and bored, but the author did a superb job of swinging the story around in a new direction and sweeping me off my feet again.
From a historical perspective, “Journey to the Well” delves into the lives of the Samaritans, which lived and thought more differently from the Jews than I had known. It’s a very interesting peek into their lifestyle and religious rituals, and it’s all woven unobtrusively into the story.
Marah is a character I’ll not soon forget, and her creator, Diana Wallis Taylor, is another author I’ll be keeping an expectant eye on.
rating: 3 of 5 stars Energetic spinster Essie Spreckelmeyer is back, but this time, she's got her head on straight. After making the hugest mistake of her life, she's not about to succumb to needing another man. She and the Lord are doing just fine on their own, thank you very much.
As his father's last will and testament is read Tony Morgan finds he's been abruptly and cruelly disinherited from his portion in the family lavish oil industry. As he sets out to find his own way in the oil business, he never expect to run smack into the most challenging task of all--earning Essie's love.
More subdued than it's prequel, "Courting Trouble", "Deep in the Heart of Trouble" is still spunky and full of fascinating characters--just what I've come to expect and love from Deeanne Gist.
Since I found "Courting Trouble" to have an unsettling ending, I was glad to read the conclusion to Essie's story and feel deeply satisfied.
rating: 4 of 5 stars I've never for a moment been disappointed in Tamera's writing. Her characters deeply love, hate, grieve. I know this not because I'm told so, but because they vividly live it.
I fell in love with Tamera's style in her Fountain Creek Chronicles and since then, continue to religiously absorb every page she produces.
Gingham Mountain by Mary Connealy
When the Soul Mends: A Novel by Cindy Woodsmall
Journey to the Well: A Novel by Diana Wallis Taylor
Deep in the Heart of Trouble by Deeanne Gist
The Inheritance by Tamera Alexander
