Tag: Amish fiction

Book Talk Tuesday: The Road Home

Published on by Live Vi-Carrie-ous

I loved the first book in the Apple Creek Dreams Series, A Quilt For Jenna. I opened The Road Home with a bit of trepidation, hoping it would be as good.
Rest assured, Patrick Craig is a gifted novelist and he writes a page-turner. I enjoyed catching up with Jerusha, Reuben, and Jenny. We got just enough of the backstory from the first book so a new reader knows what’s going on, but not so much that it bogged down the new story. When we left the Springer family, they had just welcomed four-year old Jenny into their family.
The Road Home opens in 1965. Jenny has grown into a lovely young woman, but she is plagued by feelings of not fitting in in her Amish family and community. She loves her adoptive parents, but yearns to know who she is and where she came from.
Johnny’s story begins in San Francisco, in the midst of the drug and free love culture. He witnesses a crime and flees the city with drug dealers on his tail. He spends a few days in Apple Creek and meets Jenny. The two are drawn together by a shared sense of something missing. When the drug dealers find Johnny and Jenny, their lives are in great danger. Only by God’s grace do they get away and get answers to all their questions.
I’m looking forward to the next installment from Patrick Craig, Jenny’s Choice. I’m intrigued and wondering what her choice is all about.
The Road Home is a recommended read!

–I received a free copy of The Road Home from Mr. Craig and Harvest House in return for an honest review.

Book Talk Tuesday: A Quilt For Jenna

Published on by Live Vi-Carrie-ous

I’m a little tired of Amish fiction so I opened A Quilt for Jenna with just a bit of trepidation.

I was immediately captivated by Jerusha’s pain and her need to quilt and flee her life and her grief. I loved the book! A Quilt for Jenna by Patrick E. CraigAnother reviewer said, “Amish + Quilts = reader’s delight!”

I concur.

Jerusha and Reuben fell in love but Reuben wasn’t an Amish man in good standing with the community. Then he went off to fight in World War II. He came home a changed man, determined to live by the Ordung, and return to his Amish roots. He and Jerusha marry and are happy.

A few years later, Jerush and Reuben lose their only child, Jenna. Neither Reuben nor Jerusha can find their way back to the other. Reuben blames himself forJenna’s death. So does Jerusha. Reuben has left their Amish community. Jerusha has stitched a wonderful quilt that is to be her ticket out of Apple Creek.

On Thanksgiving weekend 1950, a horrific storm blew through Ohio, capturing Jerusha and her quilt in its fury. A little girl in the back seat of another car is abandoned and left to die. The two find each other and take refuge from the storm.

Patrick Craig is equally as good at both the male and female points of view. The battle scenes at Guadalcanal are as painstakingly crafted as Jerusha’s quilting scenes.

I liked how the backstory of what happened during World War II was interwoven with the 1950’s events.

Mr. Craig accomplished what I thought was impossible: weaving a compelling Amish/quilting story into a wonderful tale of love, loss, and redemption.
I’ll definitely read the next one in the Apple Creek Dreams series!