Amish Weddings by Leslie Gould

Amish Weddings by Leslie Gould is the third installment in the Neighbors of Lancaster County series.  I waited in such anticipation for Ms Gould's next novel and she didn't disappoint. Rose Lehman is so excitedly waiting until her older sister Lila is married before she can start planning her wedding to Reuben Byler, the bishop's son.  She just wishes he was more exciting and freely expressing his feelings like Trevor who is visiting Zane Beck, Lila's fiancé.  Trevor always seeks her out and talks to her.  Trevor has even snuck in a kiss.   Rose is even starting to wonder if maybe she has feelings for Trevor but for now she is just enjoying talking to him.  Rose is mostly busy helping get ready for Lila's wedding until Lila has a horrible accident in her buggy when a car rammed into the back of it.  Before she knew it Lila was flying over her horse's head and landed by the creek with the horse on top of her.  Lila required weeks and weeks of help and exercises and Rose was there to help her.  However that gave Rose free time to sneak off with Trevor.  As Lila got better and was not so groggy from the pain medications she was more alert and able to come home.  Rose lost her freedom but she found out she had also lost more than that when she found herself pregnant and Trevor is nowhere to be found.

I thought when I saw the title and weddings were plural that this would be a happy go lucky Amish novel centered around planning several weddings.  This book does explore the planning of 3 Lehman weddings but each of them has a major curve to throw in for good measure.  In addition to all that Lila wants to seek out her biological father who she assumes would show her much more love than she has received from the Dat the stepfather who raised her.  Lila and Rose and even Dat, Tim Lehman all have some growing and learning about real love and how to show it.

I loved this book. This author is so good and I know I've said it before but she makes the Amish in her novel more realistic than any other author.  This book can be read by any and probably more enjoyed by older girls and women.  The only drawback for the very young would be the discussion of pregnancy before marriage.  There is no discussion of how she got pregnant or any other sexual content.  So make sure young ones are already educated before reading, my children were educated very young so it wouldn't have made any difference.
I received this book from BethanyHouse for this review.