October 09, 2011

Sarah's Garden by Kelly Long

I'm a pretty big fan of Amish fiction. That being said, sometimes they can fall flat. Which is what happened with this one. A nice story to be sure, but the characters were lacking quite a bit.

Sarah has always enjoyed working in her garden, and she's fantastic at it. But then someone new moves in next door and helps to distract her from the wonderful plants she grows. But Dr. Williams is an Englischer veterinarian and loving him would mean losing her community, family, and all that makes her Amish. A sacrafice that Sarah is not willing to make. To make matters worse, the previous owners of William's farm have been coming around making trouble for Sarah and her family. All she wants to do is garden, but even there she is having trouble finding peace.

The characters, in my opinion, were very weak in this novel. Sarah was just a little too perfect and innocent, even if she was Amish. It was actually wearisome hearing how nice and calm she was all the time. Grant Williams on the other hand actually creeped me out a little bit. He too was a bit too perfect and nice, but some of the things he said actually came off as icky instead of romantic. The side characters too were a little off. Especially the one boy causing trouble and blaming it on Sarah's family, there wasn't any motive that I could see for doing this and while the author alludes to it, she never comes out and really says why.

The plot was actually good. I enjoyed reading about tending the garden and the roadside stand. It was also nice to hear about the baked goods and I wish some recipes would have been included within the book. The writing was nice and homey and described a wonderful way of looking at the Amish life. Since it is Amish fiction it could also be considered Christian fiction and this book was a bit preachy. Normally they're not so bad but this one took it a little over the top to me.

Not the best Amish fiction but it wasn't terrible. If you're a fan of the genre you might as well give it a read.

Sarah's Garden
Copyright 2010
300 pages

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