A charming and atmospheric Amish romance tale.
A young Amish woman finds unexpected romance in this first volume in Hope’s series, set in rural Pine Creek, Minnesota.
Young Emma Ziegler is suddenly facing three major challenges: dealing with the recent death of her father, trying to raise her younger siblings, Sadie and Ezekiel, and keeping the family’s maple syrup farm in business. She’s a respected member of her Amish community, and traditionally, “The Amish took care of those in need, just as they knew the Lord had intended.” In the eyes of the community elders, that care includes finding the unmarried Emma a husband as soon as possible. Her father, during his final illness, matched her with Ivan Bontrager, whose family farm lies adjacent to hers. Emma had considered Ivan “a bit of a bore” and pleaded with him privately to reject the match, and at the opening of Hope’s story, he’s already happily paired off with another woman. Emma’s aunt stridently proposes another candidate: Amos Stoltzfus, who’s so abrasive and unpalatable—he argues with tourists!—that Ivan’s brother Levi steps forward to claim that Emma can’t become engaged to Amos, because she’s already affianced to him. In this way, Hope neatly sets up a fake-romance plot that fans of the genre will find pleasantly familiar. Emma is grateful for Levi’s offer and agrees to play along, but she’s also puzzled by it, as she’s unaware that Levi has been in love with her for as long as he can remember. Readers’ pleasure comes from witnessing Emma and Levi’s slow realization that their ruse has become a genuine romance over the course of this lively, brightly written book. As a bonus, Hope ably fleshes out the tale with a rich and detailed evocation of the Amish culture in which he characters live.
A charming and atmospheric Amish romance tale.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68281-568-7
Page Count: 362
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
A charming and incisive debut.
Four young nuns wind up running a halfway house full of quirky characters in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
Four Catholic sisters live with the elderly Sister Roberta in upstate New York. All on the edge of turning 30, the young women are at loose ends: Their day care is shuttered, and Sister Roberta is retiring. However, the four women refuse to be parted: “We were fixed to one another, like parts of some strange, asymmetrical body: Frances was the mouth; Mary Lucille, the heart; Therese, the legs. And I, Agatha, the eyes.” Eventually, the Buffalo diocese decides to transfer them to Rhode Island, where they are put in charge of running Little Neon, a “Mountain Dew”–colored house for residents trying to get sober and get back on their feet. When the local Catholic high school needs someone to teach geometry, the sisters volunteer Agatha, who is labelled as the quietest but the smartest of the quartet. As Agatha immerses herself in her new life, she finds the residents of Little Neon, from parolee Baby to Tim Gary, whose disfigured jaw prevents him from finding love, open her eyes to new realities, as do her colleagues and students at the high school. Eventually, Agatha can no longer ignore that the church, and most of all she herself, is changing. Luchette’s novel, her first, is structured in small chapters that feel like vignettes from a slightly wacky indie film. The book is frequently vibrant with resonant images: Agatha learning to roller skate in Little Neon’s driveway or a resident drunk in a sequined dress riding a lawnmower through the snow. But even though the book feels light, Luchette does not turn away from the responsibility of examining the darkness undergirding the institution of the Catholic Church.
A charming and incisive debut.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-26526-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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