A Perfect Love Amish Collection by Melanie Schmidt - Review

BACK  OF  THE  BOOK  BLURB

(copied from Amazon.com)

Forgiving and Learning to Love

Rebecca is going through an emotionally low period of her life wondering if she will ever find peace of mind again. When Caleb, a local Amish man, wants to court her, ghosts from her past threaten to end the relationship before it begins. Rebecca must seek to forgive someone who made her life a frightening, living hell before she can move on and look towards the future with any man. Will she find the strength to forgive and come to terms with her past memories, or will she miss an opportunity for true happiness with Caleb?

Loving and Letting, Go

Martha Stolftzfus is direct and decisive; she is just what John Beiler needs to help with his mental recovery. She's easygoing but direct, but is also quick to call John out if need be. She also knows about his past and how he stalked her friend Rebecca. Although forgiving, she is quick to intervene when it looks like he might slide back into his old, unhealthy ways.

As her friend, Rebecca Zook begins to court with another man in the community, John has second thoughts about Martha, but Martha has other ideas. She realizes that she loves John, and will do whatever it takes to get him through one of the darkest periods of his life. Will she be successful, thus setting two couples free to love and grow, or will she fail dooming both her friends and herself to a life of misery.

A Perfect Love

Ruth Lapp suffers from a congenital hip defect due to her parents being third cousins. Her mother is also guilt-ridden and takes it out on Ruth with unending abuse and vitriolic verbal attacks. In spite of this, Ruth has become an expert quilter, gifted some say, and is coming into her own in the Amish extremes to keep her daughter under her thumb. Others in the community have become aware of Mary's abuse and things are coming to a head as Ruth, Mary and Mark's lives spiral out of control.

MY  REVIEW

Very good short stories about some very emotional problems that can affect family and friends. These are subjects that you don't hear about very often in Amish books. I found myself fearing for some of the characters and near tears sometimes for them as well, not only the victims but the ones with health problems that caused them to do things they knew were wrong.

My only problem is that, in my opinion anyway, is that the 'books' are not in order. I feel that "A Perfect Love" should be read first, I will not say why as maybe the author, or publisher, had a reason for putting them in this order. I would recommend this as a good read and you can decide if you want to follow my thoughts as to which one to read first or not. ENJOY!