The Wonder of Your Love by Beth Wiseman

The Wonder of Your Love is the second book in Beth Wiseman’s Land of Canaan Series. I fell in love with Beth’s first series that a lot of the characters come from.  I really liked Katie Ann in the first book of this series and felt sorry for her.  Her husband left her for an English woman.  Katie Ann discovers she is pregnant in the first book and now she has a son.  Her husband is killed and Katie Ann knows he was her true love and believes no one else will ever be for her.  An older English lady in the community has sort of adopted Katie Ann and spends a lot of time with her and helps Katie Ann out. 

Eli Detweiler comes to Canaan to attend his nieces wedding.  He lives in Ohio with his kids.  He raised them after his wife died and they are all older now and married.  So he is ready to experience life doing what he wants.  So when he meets Katie Ann he was never thinking about looking for anyone, but Katie Ann’s elderly friend plays matchmaker.  Katie Ann’s friend wants Katie Ann to din someone to take care of her and her son because her elderly friend knows that she will not be around forever.  The couple seem to like each other, but could they make it work?  Could Katie Ann let someone else in her life after all her first husband did to her?  Would Eli be able to leave his family in Ohio to be with Katie Ann?  So many things come into play in this book.  Read it to find out. 

I really enjoyed this book.  I have wanted to learn more of Katie Ann’s story since I last left Canaan.  I also enjoyed learning more about Katie Ann’s husband’s English woman who he left Katie Ann to be with. I loved learning how Katie Ann had to learn to forgive this woman, Lucy.  There was just so much love in this book.  You left it with a warm loving feeling!   I can’t wait for the next in the series!

I was given an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and Thomas Nelson.  I was not required to give a positive review only an honest one.

Plain Proposal by Beth Wiseman

Plain Proposal by Beth Wiseman is the fifth book in the Daughter’s of the Promise series. In this book, we follow Miriam Raber, who has fallen in love with someone in her Old Order Amish community and he wants to leave the community to pursue his dream in becoming a chef. I thought this was really unusual for an Amish book because not many Amish are boys are raised to cook. Saul, the boy she has fallen in love with,  however lost his mother and since there were all boys in his family he has to learn to cook to feed the family. When Miriam finds out that the rumors of Saul leaving the community are true, she decides that she will go with him because she can’t lose him. Saul later decides he can’t leave his brothers because of a problem his father has. How will it all turn out, will they stay and be baptized into the church or will they leave to pursue Saul’s dream? You have to read to find out. I liked how this all played out in the story because I was left guessing until the end about what they would do and I really thought (or maybe was hoping) it would end the other way than it ends up.

The book also focuses on Miriam’s cousin, Shelby, who comes to live with the Rabers for the summer. Shelby’s parents are divorced and Shelby has gotten into trouble and hung out with the wrong crowd so her parents decide they can’t deal with her and send her off to Amish country to live for the summer. Shelby feels like God has deserted her, but as she gets used to living in the Amish community, she finds it gives her things that the outside world never could. Will she have to go home at the end of the summer or will she finally find her way and stay with the Rabers? The story focuses on that quite a bit and Shelby relies on Miriam as much as Miriam relies on her for guidance as they become Daughters of the Promise.


I had previously read all the other books in this series and while the characters’ from the other books in the series are mentioned, I really think you can read this book without reading the other ones. I think this is because a lot of the other characters in previous books have moved to her Colorado series and this book focuses on characters from the Amish community and their family members left behind in Paradise. I left the book feeling uplifted and really liked the story. I think that I enjoyed previously books in the series more than this one, but it was still a really good story. The reader is drawn into the story and you can't put it down, as with Beth's other books.

In one part of this book we learn about someone (I can't give much more away or it will spoil this story) who wants to go visit the relatives in Colorado to tell Katie Ann something important.  I wonder if we might not learn more about this in the Colorado series as it really left me hanging and wanting to know more about what they wanted to tell her.  Guess I'll have to wait for the next one in the Land of Cannan series to see.

I was given an advanced copy of the book to review through Net Galley and Thomas Nelson publishing. I was not required to give a positive review but an honest opinion.

Plain Proposal  is scheduled to release on March 30, 2011, however Amazon says it is in stock but may take 2-3 more days for delivery for the paperback edition. You can buy it in paperback, Kindle edition, or audio book I'd recommend it to anyone who loves Amish Fiction.

Book Review-Seek Me With All your Heart

Seek Me With All Your Heart is the first book in a new series, Land of Canaan, by Beth Wiseman.  I have been waiting for this book to come out every since I read the last book of the Daughters of the Promise series.  In that book we learn that several of the characters are going to move to Colorado to start over and go where there is more farm land.  We learn the reason for those moves in this book.  We also meet the Detweiler family who move to Canaan for their own reasons.  There are several stories going on in the book, but I think the main one was the story of Emily and David.  David was a character from another The Daughters of the Promise series who feels he can never marry because he had a kidney transplant and it he might not live a long life and Emily is an new character who we learn was raped and her family moved to get away from the situation.  Emily feels she is unworthy to marry because of the rape.  David and Emily have a rocky beginning but soon become good friends.    When that friendship feels more like love what will they do since both have decided marriage is not the route for them?  You will find out in this book.

I really enjoyed getting to see the characters from the Daughters of the Promise series and really enjoyed meeting the new characters as well.  I have waited so long to find out why they decided to leave all they knew and loved to go to Canaan.  I did have some issues with the rape storyline.  I thought the Amish did not take people to court.  They tried to handle things in their communities.  So, that part of the story had me wondering a little. I did like how her parents handled the rape.  In other Amish fiction stories I've read, it felt like the parents would not even believe the girl. Other than that I totally loved the book and would recommend it to people who love Amish fiction. I look forward to reading more in this series. This is the first book I have bought for my Kindle for Android and I really enjoyed reading it that way.