A Google user
Emma's heart was broken four years ago when her beau Carl decided that he needed to try living in the Amish world. As a school teacher she believes that her pupils may be the closest she will ever come to having her own children. When an unexpected accident takes the lives of her mother and father she learns that an old family friend Thomas has feelings for her and actually talked to her father, but her father thought their age difference was to far apart. Thomas is a quiet widower with two small children who feels drawn to Emma, but decided to honor her father's wishes, but now since her parents are gone, their relationship slowly starts to change, but when Carl returns home saying he wants to return to the faith and tries courting Emma, her feelings are conflicted. There is a secret though that Carl is harboring, a secret that he shares with Emma. Will Emma and Thomas find love together, or will Carl be the one she chooses?
Amish fiction is my favorite genre to read, but I hadn't read anything by this new to me author Kelly Irvin, so I was excited to give her writing a try. Well I loved this story. I was immediately drawn into the story. The story opens with a major tragedy that caused me to feel sorrow for Emma and her siblings. While the primary story was of 23 year old Emma there were a few secondary stories that really pulled this book along at a brisk pace. For example her sister Catherine was struggling with PTSD because of something she saw. Her brother Luke and his wife Leah had to move back to the family farm so that Luke could fill in the gaps left open by the loss of his parents, which wasn't an easy transition for Leah by any means.There was also the struggle her seventeen year old brother Josiah was facing because he was thinking of leaving the faith.With several story lines going on one might assume that it would be difficult to keep things straight , but the author does an amazing job of weaving them together to make for a fast moving plot that kept me wanting to know not only how things would work out for Emma but for everyone else as well. I thought the author's message of faith and forgiveness was perfectly blended into the story, we see how Emma struggles with finding forgiveness for the truck driver who caused the accident, and finding some wonderful words of wisdom from her aunt.
Overall I really enjoyed the first installment of The Bliss Creek Amish and look forward to reading the next installment in the series.
