Beneath the Summer Sun by Kelly Irvin

Beneath the Summer Sun by Kelly Irvin is the 2nd in the An Every Amish Season series.  In this novel Jennie Troyer has been a widow for 4 years and is no closer to trusting herself in picking a man to be her life partner nor her children's new father.  In her first marriage she thought she was so in love with the best man ever when she married Atlee and Atlee had yelled at her and told her she was clumsy or stupid and sometimes that was worse than when he physically abused her or made her sleep in the barn.  Sometimes she could figure out what made him mad but many times it seemed that he just flew off the handle and she never could figure out why.  When he died in an accident she felt guilty that she was relieved but that didn't make her sorry that he was gone.  In the Amish faith when a person makes a vow to be married it is for life and there is no way out unless God releases you.  The Amish believe that if your spouse dies that if possible the widow should quickly remarry and "get on with life".  Her best friend Bess was getting ready to marry her first husband's best friend and was quite happy about it but Jennie was no closer to remarriage than the day that Atlee died. 

In her community were 2 men who thought differently, Nathan, a Mennonite man and Leo Graber an Amish man who had caught her eye before she married Atlee but now seemed to have renewed interest in Jennie.  Atlee had been kind and loving before they married but by 6 months was already mistreating her, so how did she know that Nathan or Leo wouldn't do the same thing?  She now had 7 children to think of not just herself.   Could Jennie ever learn to trust God and man again?  Both of the men interested in her seemed to have problems that they needed to overcome in the trust game also. How could she work on trusting herself and help them learn to trust also?  If she did learn to trust these men how could she choose between them?  Read this book to find out if Jennie ever learns to live the life that God intended her to have.

I liked reading this book and think that any woman would also enjoy it unless the issue of domestic violence hits too close to home.  This book centers on both domestic violence as well as learning to trust after living with the violence.
I received this book from BookLook Bloggers for this review.