Hubbard (Hidden Away at Promise Lodge) wraps up the Promise Lodge series with an energetic if overstuffed tale of unexpected love. Bad-boy Isaac Chupp is eager to escape a checkered past in Coldstream, Mo., for a quieter life in the Amish colony of Promise Lodge. But his reputation travels fast between the two communities, which are a three-hour drive apart. Soon nearly the whole town knows about his drunken exploits, including accidentally setting two barns on fire when he knocked over lit lanterns. Storekeeper Dale Kraybill is willing to give Isaac a job if he makes amends with those he’s harmed, which Isaac hopes might persuade Vera Brubaker that he’s “worthy of her time.” But when Vera starts to get close to Ezra Overholt, Isaac makes a jealous blunder that spoils his chances with her. Things become even more complicated when Maria Zehr, who’s recently returned to town, sets her sights on Ezra. After several more twists and turns, Maria and Isaac find their way to one another and sparks fly, though they’ll need to keep their volatile emotions in check to build a future together. While the many relationships and subplots can be hard to track, Hubbard’s fans will appreciate cameos by favorite characters from other books in the series, and there’s more than enough heart to keep readers hooked until the end. This is good fun. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 12/15/2023 | Details & Permalink

Peterson (Knowing You) kicks off her Heart of Cheyenne series with a crackling romance set against the backdrop of a bustling, crime-riddled frontier town. It’s 1867 when 20-year-old Marybeth Kruger’s father dies in a wagon accident, leaving her the sole caretaker of her one-year-old sister, Carrie. To make matters worse, the local pastor pressures Marybeth to let a wealthy couple adopt her baby sister. Marybeth’s friend, kind widower Edward Vogel, proposes a platonic marriage to save Carrie and give her a stable life. The three start afresh in Cheyenne, an “end-of-the-rails” frontier town in Dakota Territory, where their bare-bones life involves sleeping in a tent in frigid temperatures and avoiding a veritable sea of criminals, especially the fearsome brothers Hank and Emory Garlow. As Marybeth and Edward adapt to the town, they yearn for more than a platonic relationship, though trouble—in the form of a run-in with the Garlow brothers that ends in gunfire—threatens to snuff out the pair’s chance at happiness. Peterson adeptly balances a propulsive story line with Marybeth and Edward’s slow-burning romance, which is woven through with deeply felt meditations on letting go of grief and embracing unexpected love. This spirited series launch will whet appetites for the next installment. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 12/08/2023 | Details & Permalink

Two career-focused women swap hospitality jobs and chaos ensues in the jovial latest from Carlson (A Royal Christmas). Ginny Masters, the ambitious manager of a boutique luxury hotel in Seattle, is tired of meeting the last-minute demands of her high-strung boss, Diana. After a mix-up over wedding reception flowers sparks a spat between the two, Ginny informs Diana that she’s signed up on a job-swap website to switch places with the manager of a fishing lodge in Idaho. Jacqueline Potter has worked at her grandfather’s lodge for six years and is sick of its run-down facilities and frustrated by standoffish, “drop-dead gorgeous” fishing guide Ben Tanninger, whom she keeps trying (and failing) to attract. After the switch, things seem idyllic at first—Ginny revels in the town’s quiet, implements improvements to the lodge, and strikes up a flirty friendship-and-then-more with Ben, while Jacqueline sets her sights on Diana’s son, Adrian. But Jacqueline soon realizes she’s in over her head at the hotel, and she and Adrian work to lure Ginny back to big city. Ginny’s budding relationship is put at risk; Jacqueline must decide how hard she’s willing to work for her career; and both women draw on faith to decide where they belong. Go-getter Ginny and dreamy Jacqueline are effective foils, and the mistakes and misunderstandings that ensue when each tries to inhabit the other’s life churn up more than enough momentum to keep the pages turning. Carlson’s lighthearted take on an old trope charms. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 12/15/2023 | Details & Permalink

The bright lights of professional baseball shine on Amish country in this high-spirited romance from Beckstrand (The Amish Quiltmaker’s Unconventional Niece). When the Yoder sisters decide to make a quilt for their great-grandmother’s 100th birthday, they seek out octogenarian “master quilter” Cathy Larsen, who promises that each of the quilt blocks she gives the sisters “has a little magic stitched into it.” Mary Yoder thinks nothing of choosing the “Drunkard’s Path” pattern until an inebriated major leaguer with “muscular arms and shoulders as broad as the Mississippi River” crashes his car into her family’s barn. Clay Markham, who’s been dodging the limelight ever since he cost his team a spot in the playoffs, offers to pay for the damage, but Mary’s father insists he repair it himself. As Clay spends more time with the family, he grows to appreciate their slower-paced lifestyle and begins to fall for Mary. Trouble comes, however, when news of his whereabouts leaks, bringing reporters and fans to the Yoders’ door. Worried that he’s endangering the family, Clay decides to leave, forcing shy, withdrawn Mary to fight for the man she loves. The plot never flags across its many twists and turns—some more believable than others, but each rendered with enough heart and charm to sweep readers happily along for the ride. Beckstrand’s fans will delight in this cheerful romp. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 12/08/2023 | Details & Permalink

Gray (Her Only Wish), Hubbard (Hidden Away at Promise Lodge), and Lauer (The Love of a Good Amish Woman) celebrate the spirit of Valentine’s Day in a trio of heartwarming epistolary Amish romances. Gray’s “A Love Letter Courtship” finds Matthew Lapp pursuing his best friend’s sister, Jenni Miller. Unconvinced of his affections—she’s insecure about her looks and believes Matthew is interested simply because she lives nearby—Jenni suggests the two write letters to one another until Valentine’s Day to gauge their compatibility. During their weeks of correspondence, she learns about Matt’s dysfunctional home life and becomes fonder of him than she thought possible. Secret admirers and second chances animate Lauer’s “The Wrong Valentine,” in which a widowed schoolteacher strikes up a lively correspondence with a mystery pen pal after the sample Valentine’s Day card she’d shown to her class accidentally gets delivered to charming “bad-boy” Mose Troyer, who’d once briefly left the Amish community. Mistaken identity tropes also form the basis for Hubbard’s “S.W.A.K.,” albeit somewhat less successfully. When shy Fannie Kurtz declares her love for Eddie Brubaker in a letter, confusion ensues because Eddie is being avidly pursued by—and seeking to fend off—another girl named Fannie, who has similar handwriting. Though the similarities between the two Fannies feel contrived, there’s plenty of clean, slow-burning romance for readers to savor in this earnest anthology. It’s a delight. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/17/2023 | Details & Permalink

A woman is given a do-over she didn’t ask for—and didn’t know she needed—in this sensitive, time-bending contemporary from Broekhuis (Here Goes Nothing). For months, Leona has been looking forward to a fancy dinner with her husband, David, to celebrate their 10-year anniversary. When she arrives at the restaurant, however, small signs indicate that something is awry, from the chilly silence between her and David to his unfamiliar haircut. It isn’t until they return home (to a stately Victorian Leona hasn’t seen in years) that she realizes she’s stepped into an alternate universe, in which David works for his wealthy father’s pharmaceutical company, and the couple is well-off, but seem to have an invisible rift dividing them. Leona decides to delay investigating how she ended up in this alternate world when she realizes her daughter Vera—who died at four months in a car crash a year earlier—is alive and well. Made privy to what her life with David might have been like if they’d made different choices, Leona searches for a way back to her former reality when it becomes clear it may be dangerous to stay in her new one. Broekhuis’s shifts between past and present are sometimes jarring, but she mostly makes up for it with perceptive renderings of the nuances of grief, the challenges of healing, and what it means to trust God’s will. There’s plenty to appreciate in this touching tale of loss and renewal. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 11/17/2023 | Details & Permalink

Austin (Long Way Home) sets this engrossing family drama against a cloistered, glittering world of Gilded Age wealth. When New York City business magnate Arthur Stanhope III dies in 1898, leaving his fortune to his male next of kin (a “weaselly” old uncle), the Stanhope women—Arthur’s mother Junietta, wife Sylvia, and daughter Adelaide—are left adrift and uncertain of the future. Eager to hang onto their mansion and lavish lifestyle, Sylvia decides that 19-year-old Adelaide must marry a man of means. But Junietta has other ideas—“You can go anywhere and be anything want to be,” she tells her granddaughter, recalling how she’d been trapped by the rigid rules of her own high-society upbringing. Adelaide endures her mother’s dinner party setups until she starts to fall for the family’s young, middle-class lawyer. As issues with the mansion crest, Sylvia weighs whether to remain hostage to the rules of the upper crust, Junietta reflects on past regrets and a lost romance, and Adelaide must decide if true love is worth sacrificing her place in high-society New York. Austin brings a complex tangle of family bonds to life with nuance, delivering an inspiring message about the value of following one’s heart in the face of social pressures. The result will please Austin’s fans and should win her some new ones. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 11/10/2023 | Details & Permalink

New beginnings, long-buried secrets, and German culinary delicacies combine in this touching tale of familial hurt and healing from Brunsvold (The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip). Reeling from her parents’ divorce and her father’s remarriage less than a month later, high school teacher Nikki Werner seeks refuge over summer break at her late grandmother’s farmhouse, now owned by her uncle Wes. While cleaning, she stumbles upon a cache of old family photos and a composition book that her great-grandmother Lena, a German immigrant, filled with a mix of recipes and spiritual insights (“Three things withstood the pressures of time and assimilation,” Lena mused of the family’s roots; “faith in One True God, hope for better things, and love of butter”). Undone by the tension with her father and a recent blowout with her boyfriend, Nikki seeks comfort in Lena’s recipes and wise insights into the power of prayer. As the summer wears on, Nikki uncovers tangled secrets about her dad’s traumatic childhood and his relationship with his own angry, volatile father, though she’ll need God’s help to forgive him, heal, and move forward. Brunsvold animates each of her well-drawn characters with palpable, deeply rooted emotion; Nikki’s mix of simmering resentment and love toward her father is rendered with particular care, and makes their eventual reconciliation all the sweeter. Interwoven with gentle humor and plenty of German recipes (heavy on the potatoes, cabbage, and of course, butter), this is sure to satisfy. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/10/2023 | Details & Permalink

An enterprising seamstress forges a new life after her world is upended by the French and Indian War in this textured historical romance from Frantz (The Rose and the Thistle). It’s 1754 and Sylvie Galant lives with her family in Acadie (modern-day Nova Scotia), a region fiercely contested by the English and French. As rumors of British military machinations circulate, Sylvie’s brother tells the family about William Blackburn, an English commander whose daring exploits are “the stuff of legends” and whose capture commands “the highest ever” bounty set by French officials. When William comes to the family farm seeking Sylie’s brother, a rumored leader in the French Resistance, she’s drawn to the charming stranger who calls himself “Le Loup” (the wolf). Before they can meet again, however, English soldiers round up the Acadians and force them onto ships heading to British colonies to the south. William resigns his commission in protest, as he never wanted the neutral Acadian people harmed. Sylvie suffers through the arduous journey and a shipwreck before ending up in Virginia, where she works to build a new life—unaware that William has also landed nearby and that God may have plans for their future together. Frantz’s atmospheric writing is easy to sink into, from the grimness of the disease-riddled voyage to the ethereal Acadian landscape. While William and Sylvie’s romance is a slow burn, there’s a rewarding payoff to this tale of second chances born from tragedy. Frantz’s fans won’t be disappointed. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/03/2023 | Details & Permalink

In this textured family drama from Pearson (Walking in Tall Weeds), three adult sisters are drawn back into one another’s orbit after their mother’s death. Frankie, Annabelle, and Charlotte could hardly be more different: pragmatic Frankie has four kids and often served as a stand-in mom for her siblings, but is slowly cracking under the weight of familial obligations; gentle and reticent Annabelle struggles with self-esteem issues; and “workaholic” psychologist Charlotte is single, successful, and expert at keeping others at a distance. When their domineering mother Mayhelen dies, the three reunite to make funeral arrangements and determine the fate of their childhood home. In doing so, they come face-to-face with memories of the woman whose “hold on them was as firm as it was painful.” Charlotte, who’d been their mother’s favorite, must reconcile her memories with the painful stories her sisters have shared, while Annabelle, who’s pregnant with her first child, begins to view Mayhelen in a more sympathetic light. As the sisters ricochet between grief and bitterness, they grapple with the meaning of forgiveness and the limits of family duty in a narrative that’s empathic, energetic, and nuanced. The result is a heartfelt tribute to the bonds of sisterhood. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 10/20/2023 | Details & Permalink