cover image A Springtime Heart

A Springtime Heart

Marta Perry. Berkley, $7.99 mass market (288p) ISBN 978-1-98-480321-4

Perry transports readers to peaceful Pennsylvania in the tepid second Promise Glen romance (after A Christmas Home). After Amish teenage Thomas Fisher is arrested during a police raid at an Englisch house party, his father, the minister of their Pennsylvania Amish community, banishes him to his uncle’s house in Ohio. Seven years later, Thomas returns to Promise Glen in hope of starting his own construction company. School teacher Dorcas Beiler has mixed feelings when she sees Thomas again. Once close friends, she was the one who dragged him to the party in the first place, and Thomas was arrested while helping her get away—a secret she’s kept ever since. Though Dorcas is happy to see her old friend and impressed by his transformation from gangly boy to mature man, she’s worried he’ll reveal the truth of what happened that night. Meanwhile, Thomas struggles to reconnect with his father, making him unsure if he should stay in Promise Glen. Thomas and Dorcas’s relationship is largely based on their shared past and never really develops as adults. Perry’s vivid descriptions immerse readers into a slow, soothing Amish lifestyle, but the lack of conflict in Promise Glen dulls the romance. Genre fans will find this solid but not outstanding. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne & Miller Literary. (July)