Abigail’s Amish life has always followed a certain path...until an Englisch woman disrupts all she’s known to be true.
Growing up Amish, Abigail Bontrager often felt like a square peg in a round hole. Her pie crusts always turned out tough. Her stitches always ran crooked. She was clumsy. Not ideal for an aspiring Amish wife and mother, but her faith and love of her family, which are so much more important, are solid. Plus, her relationship with the attractive and kindhearted Owen Kurtz is moving in the right direction.
Owen is part dreamer, part entrepreneur. His friendship with Abigail has gradually blossomed into a sweet and loving courtship. Inspired by the hope of a future with the girl of his dreams, he decides to take the next step in building a business of his own - in the promising new industry of growing sunflowers.
When an outsider claiming to be Abigail’s birth mother abruptly enters her life, Abigail’s world comes crashing down. Confused and upset, she determined to discover who she really is. Her journey of discovery leads to the possibilities of a new life waiting for her in the Englisch world. But is this new life really worth giving up everything and everyone she’s known? How can Abigail and Owen follow their hearts - and God’s plan - when these new paths now lead them into the unknown?
In this second book in the Amish Blessings series, best-selling and award-winning romance novelist Kelly Irvin shares an inspiring story of following your heart while trusting God to lead you into your future.
Warmth of Sunshine – Read the first 5 chapters here
-Review-
The second entry in Irvin’s Amish Blessings series (after Love’s Dwelling) delivers an elegant portrait of a young Amish woman caught between two worlds. Twenty-year-old Abigail Bontrager’s life is turned upside down when her English (non-Amish) biological mother, Heather, shows up and asks to get to know her. Abigail didn’t know she was adopted and feels unable to trust her adoptive parents, so she decides, over their objections, to spend a couple of weeks with Heather and Heather’s other children. Owen Kurtz, the Amish boyfriend Abigail had recently started seeing, supports her decision and resolves to wait for her return. While living with Heather, Abigail determines “to find out if she was meant to be English” and wears English clothes, parties, dances, and develops a crush on an English man. Meanwhile, Owen’s brother is in his Rumspringa when he discovers pictures of Abigail’s new life on social media. He tells their bishop, who comes to Heather’s house with Owen and Abigail’s adoptive father to confront Abigail, compelling her to choose which world, and which man, she belongs with. Irvin skillfully conveys Abigail’s internal conflict (“How could Abigail put into words the longing that thrummed in her chest? The sense of loss, of missing out, of missing it all,” she reminisces about Amish life). Fans of Amish romance will want to check this out. (July)
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