Showing posts with label Amish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amish. Show all posts

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Christmas at the Amish Market by Shelley Shepard Gray

 


Title:  Christmas at the Amish Market

Author:  Shelley Shepard Gray

Narrated by:  Suzie Althens

Publisher: Hallmark Publishing

Length: Approximately 7 hours and 53 minutes

Source: Review Copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!

 Do you have a favorite shop you like to go to at Christmas time or for other times you like to give gifts?  We have a few, but Seroogy’s Chocolate shop in Green Bay is a favorite.

Christmas at the Amish market is my last Christmas audiobook of the season.  Wesley is running his family’s Amish market during the busy Christmas season as his father is having health problems.  This does not leave him with enough time to get to visit with his girlfriend, Liesl.  Liesl enlists her Aunt Jenny to help Wesley out at the Market.  Much to Wesley’s surprise, Aunt Jenny is his age.  As they start to work together, sparks start to fly.   But how can they think about romance with Liesl in the picture?  Liesl has also been helping out a widower with his young daughter and has been feeling sparks of her own. Will everyone find their happily ever after at Christmas?

 The forbidden romance trope sometimes can annoy me when I feel that people are getting hurt or lying is involved.  Christmas at the Amish Farm though played this trope perfectly.  I could tell right away that Wesley and Liesl were friends that everyone thought should be together, but they really shouldn’t be.  Everything in the story played out well as the characters made their realizations about how they felt about each other and how they would move forward.  I just have to say that Christmas Eve is a really bad day to break off a relationship with someone!

 Suzie Althens was a good narrator, and this was a delightful Amish romance Christmas story.  Now that we are into January, I am moving on from Christmas audiobooks for now!

Thursday, December 23, 2021

A Courtship Christmas by Shelley Shepard Gray


 Title:  A Courtship Christmas

Author: Shelley Shepard Gray

Narrated by:  Tavia Gilbert

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 7 hours and 22 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank-you!

 Atle Petersheim has a crush on widow Sadie Mast.  He is a quiet man that loves his work as a carpenter.  He is not sure how to go about courting Sadie.  She hires him to make a new room for her oldest son, Cale.  Cale has a crush of his own on his employers’ daughter, Hope.  Atle asks the bookmobile librarian, Sarah Anne, for help on how to court Sadie.  Instead of a self-help book, she loans him a modern romance in which she believes he will find inspiration.  Atle is embarrassed, but he does find inspiration in the book.  Will Atle be able to work up the courage to ask Sadie to court him?  After a disastrous first date with Hope, will Cale be able to win back her and her parents’ approval?

 I loved this audiobook.  It was a sweet clean Amish romance.  I really liked how there was a quote from Atle’s romance novel at the start of each chapter.  I felt vested in that story as well.  I loved both the forty something and teenage romances in this novel.  This is the third book in the series, but I haven’t read the rest of the series and I felt it worked well as a standalone. 

 I really enjoyed the characters.  Atle was a good man, but socially awkward.  Sadie’s first husband was verbally and physically abusive to her and her three children.  They are trying to figure out how to make it and move forward since his death.  Cale is a good boy, but at sixteen, he feels like he has to be the man of the house since his father’s death.  He wonders if he’ll be able to have his own life.  Hope has always felt like she was not as good as her older sister and self-conscious about her weight.  I like how through the novel she learns how to stand up for herself.

 I loved the thoughtful Christmas gifts in the novel, and I really liked the narrator.  This was a very enjoyable Christmas audiobook that would be enjoyable any time of year.

Monday, January 4, 2021

The Amish Baker’s Rival (TLC Book Tour) by Marie E. Bast

 

The Amish Baker’s Rival is a delightfully sweet novel that I devoured quickly over this weekend. 

Mary Brenneman is a young Amish woman running her stepmother’s bakery, Amish Sweet Delights.  Finances are tight after medical bills for her twin sisters’ birth.  Her heart is also still broken from being left at the alter a year before by a man who decided he no longer wanted to be Amish.  Handsome Englischer Noah Miller arrives in the small town and opens a grocery, deli, and bakery directly across the street.  How can one small town support two bakeries?

 The annual fall festival is hosting a bakery contest with a $20,000 prize that is attracting bakers from across the country.  Noah and Mary both compete with the thought that if either one wins, they will be the baker that survives.  As they practice their recipes and get to know each other better, they realize there may be more there than just being rivals.  Who will win the contest and can an Amish woman and Englischer man have a future together?

I greatly enjoyed this sweet romance.  I love to bake and enjoyed the discussion of baking and the inner workings of a bakery.  I also really liked the story of Noah and his siblings returning to town to connect with their Amish grandparents.  It was interesting learning about Amish customs and beliefs.  The characters were well written.  I learned at the end this was part of a series, but it is very much a standalone novel. 

I also enjoyed the baking contest.  My Grandma Arlt was an apple pie baking champion in our small town and my Mom has won as well.  My Dad bakes excellent desserts, but the title has eluded him.  I don’t know if my home town has had any baking contests for a while.  I’d like to be in one myself!

Overall, The Amish Baker’s Rival is an excellent inspiration romance that was a true delight to read. 

Book Source:  A signed copy from author Marie E. Bast as part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thank-you!  For more information and to see the rest of the tour schedule, click on this link.


From the Publisher:


This exciting new Amish romance is from Publishers Weekly bestselling author of The Amish Baker and The Amish Marriage Bargain.


She’ll do anything to protect her bakery… no matter the cost to her heart.

Small-town, Amish baker Mary Brenneman is devastated when handsome Englischer Noah Miller opens up a bakery right across from hers. Now she must win a local baking contest just to stay in business. But somewhere along the way, Noah and Mary’s kitchen wars are quickly warming into something more…

Still mourning the death of his parents, Mary helps Noah search for the Amish grandparents he has never met. And when a crisis hits Mary’s bakery, Noah volunteers his assistance.

After Mary’s now ex-fiancé broke their engagement so he could go live in the Englisch world, she vows to stay away from men…especially Englisch men. Even though she likes Noah more each day, she keeps her distance.

With her heart packed with distrust, Noah hopes to soften her resolve and convince Mary of their undeniable love. But trouble brews at the baking contest when Mary thinks Noah has stolen her recipe. After the surprising result of the contest, Noah and Mary must face their feelings and decide what road God has set them upon.

Purchase Links: