An Amish Homecoming by 4 Authors, Amy Clipston, Beth Wiseman, Shelley Shepard Gray, and Kathleen Fuller; is a delightful book about 4 different women returning to the place of their birth to resolve past events and carry on with their future. In Amy Clipston's story, No Place like Home, Eva Dienner returns after living with the family of her husband after his death. Eva has been living there trying to help her husband's family deal with the tragedy of his untimely death. Eva finds that Ian who was always her best friend and the man that her parents wanted her to marry has been living on her parents place helping farm and (she feels) taking over her place in the family. Eva learns to deal with the jealousy and mistrust she feels when she sees that her aging parents leaning on Ian to help in their daily life. As she sees this she is also remembering how important he has always been to her and she is beginning to be drawn back to the love of her youth.
In When Love Returns by Beth Wiseman Sarah Zook has started a new life after 6 years of living on her own following the unwed pregnancy and probable rape when she was in her teens. At the time she had been engage to Abram whom she still loves. She chose to tell no one of the rape that possibly occurred one night when she had gone out with her English friend and got drugged. She awakened with her clothing rearranged but simply can't remember what happened that night. Sarah wants to face the truth but can she hurt Abram that much? Besides all this she is finding herself falling in love with Abram even though he is so angry about her leaving.
The Courage to Love by Shelley Shepard Gray is about a young widow, Irene, who is staying with her elderly friends in exchange for room and board. Irene is the biggest reason why the Wengerds can so easily continue living in their home but Marcus their only son doesn't trust Irene and believes that she is trouble and forces her out of their home. Marcus loves his parents but is rarely around to help so was unaware of their problems with aging in their home by their selves. As Marcus begins to help his parents more he finds out just how much help that Irene was providing for them and how valuable she is becoming to him. Will the Irene and Marcus learn of each other's value in time to save Irene's place in the Wengerd's home before she moves out of all of their life?
What Love Built by Kathleen Fuller is about stubborn Carolyn's return home to open a bakery which has been a lifelong dream of her. Carolyn is living with her brother and his family and will accept no help from anyone in the community. She doesn't trust the community since the former bishop tried to marry her off to a person she didn't love when she told him that she wanted to run a bakery. The community had many persons who had trouble with the old bishop but of course Carolyn doesn't know this. She only knows that she had to leave the community of her youth in order to live as she wanted. This bishop was now gone and her brother was the new bishop and he asked her to come back and live with his family. Atlee is visiting his friend in the same community while morning the death of his wife. Atlee accidently knocks down Carolyn and in order to help her starts being the only person that Carolyn will begrudgingly allow to help to open the bakery.
Each of these stories ends with discussion questions if the reader would like to use them as study guides. Each of these love stories can stand alone as a 100 page novella of their own as they are not a part of longer series. This book could be read by any aged person and enjoyed. I loved this book.
