Summary:
Carolyn Lapp dreams of marrying for love. But will the errors of her past destroy this dream forever? Carolyn Lapp longs to have a traditional Amish family. But she lives on her brother’s farm with her parents and her 15-year old son, Benjamin. Carolyn has never revealed the identity of Benjamin’s father and lives daily with the guilt and shame of her youthful indiscretion. Her brother simply will not forgive her. His answer is to arrange a practical marriage for Carolyn to Saul, a widower with a little girl. But Carolyn isn’t convinced that Saul really loves her and believes he is simply looking for someone to help raise his daughter. When Benjamin causes trouble at a local horse auction, horse breeder Joshua Glick decides that he must be taught a lesson. Carolyn and Joshua are unmistakably drawn to each other, but Joshua mistakenly assumes that Benjamin is Carolyn’s brother. Carolyn fears that if he discovers the truth, her past will destroy their budding romance. After years of shame and loneliness, Carolyn suddenly has two men vying for her attention. But which of them will give her the family – and the unconditional love – she’s longed for?
This is my first Amy Clipson book, but I’m officially an Amish book lover. I’m a succor for a sweet romance story, along the lines of the Harlequin Love Inspired books (which I also love by the way). You get your romance and your strong story. Ms Clip does an extrodinary job combining sweet romance and story – and the Amish life. She includes quite a controversial subject, which was kind of interesting to me. I’ve not read another Amish book that touched on it before. I really liked how she handled it, discussing God’s love and forgiveness and how pride can get in the way of that. There were so many underlying stories of God’s grace and love, of forgiveness and honesty. The one part that I didn’t care for in the book, also happened to be a cool part. I know, I know, that is completely ridiculous sounding. There was a lot of Amish words thrown in. Most of the Amish books I’ve read do this, but this one was heavy on the Amish words. There was a glossery and they were easy enough to infer from the sentence. However, it was just enough to trip you up in your head when you were on a roll reading. But, it was kind of cool learning a lot of the words that I had not previously heard. This is the second book within this series and I’m interested to read the next one. I may or may not move backward and find the first one to read.
overall I would give it 4.5 stars. I would definitely recommend this to someone who appreciated this genre of book, but maybe not for an Amish newbie.
**I was provided this book in partnership with BookLook Bloggers in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any other way. As always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.
