An Amish Christmas at North Star

An interesting collection of Amish novellas that all have one common thread. Four babies were born on a stormy winter night by one midwife. It was the talk of the town and of the nation. Decades later one reporter wants to do a follow up piece and see where the Amish babies are now. Each novella in this collection focuses on a different baby. One is a murder mystery with a fudge shop, another is about an adopted English girl that discovers her birth family was Amish. In another, a woman breaks off her engagement with her beloved over mysterious circumstances. And in the last a twelve year old boy will stop at nothing to get his older brother home for Christmas. All have ties to the North Star Amish community, and all the stories take place at Christmas. I actually did enjoy all four. I wouldn't mind reading another collection like this!

A Christmas Haven

I was hoping that Christmas would be more of a central theme and honestly Christmas didn't play into the story at all. Most of the novel takes place in summer and fall. Ivy Zook has decided that she is going to leave the Amish in order to pursue her dream of party planning. Her mother is devastated and begs her to wit a few months so as not to cause a scandal and ruin her sister's wedding and Ivy reluctantly agrees. When a Swartzentruber Amish man and pregnant woman crash a car into the storefront where Ivy's sister works her mother agrees to take in the young couple until the girl gets better. Things get even more complicated when they learn the circumstances that the two Swartzentruber are fleeing from. Ivy's problems suddenly don't seem so big - but she's still not willing to let anything get in the way of her following her heart. Again - pretty ok - was just in the mood for a holiday read.