Thursday, November 21, 2013

An Amish Miracle by Beth Wiseman, Ruth Reid and Mary Ellis

An Amish Miracle by Beth Wiseman, Ruth Reid and Mary Ellis is a collection of 3 novellas, each one written by one of these women.  They each highlight a different woman in the same Amish community of Paradise, Pennsylvania.    These women are all good friends and each one is about to experience a miracle from God.  Hope Bowman believes that God is punishing her by giving her only girls for children because when was a very young teenage girl she was raped and her father made her give up the boy child for adoption.  Hope has 4 beautiful loving daughters whom she loves dearly but so wants a son not only for her husband but also for herself.  She prays for a miracle then the day after she admits to her husband, Stephen, of her shame she awakens to a knock on her door and finds her 15 year old son, James, standing there with quite a story to tell the family of his adoption then life in foster care.
The next story continues to tell of Bowman family but the story centers on Hope’s good friend Rosa Hostetler who is about to lose the farm to back taxes after the untimely death of her husband.  Rosa hates depending on anyone for anything but her pride is getting her further and further into debt and then when the English neighbor’s dog start killing her chickens that is the last straw.  Those chicken’s eggs are her only means of supporting herself.  Not only are her chickens being depleted but since they are now scared the ones that are left have quit laying.  One day that she lost her temper and shot the dog leaving it wounded and limping back to its master.  Her neighbor brought her the vet bill.  It took all the money she had been saving to pay for it.  She gave up.  She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t pay her bills, she would have to go live with her aunt and she didn’t want to.  That night she prayed for a miracle.
The last of the novellas continues these 2 women’s stories to a minor degree and Becky Byler is the lead character.  Becky had been discussed in the two prior stories as a lovely though overweight teenage girl.  Everyone loves Becky but Becky has no confidence in herself or believing that her neighbors especially the boys would like her just for herself—even her overweight self.  Becky learns to love herself and trust that people would love her also even if she doesn’t look like what the world see’s as beautiful.
I liked this collection of stories.  I especially liked that though these stories could all stand alone that they all are also connected.  These 3 writers have done a fabulous job of intertwining the stories to make this book.  I would recommend this as good reading for any woman or girl of most any age.
This book was provided by Booksneeze for this review.

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