An Amish Christmas by Beth Wiseman

There's something about Amish romances that are just so comforting. I try to read everyone I can get my hands on and have read many. This book actually was three novellas in one, written by different authors, but all about the same groups of people and they intertwined with each other.

In A Miracle for Miriam, Miriam has resigned herself to being a bit alone. After all, even for the plain people she is rather plain. But a boy who broke her heart and spirit when she was fourteen has just returned after an accident in the Englischer world. Seth isn't the mean boy he used to be, but he's having trouble convincing Miriam of this.

A Choice to Forgive follows widow Lydia who after the death of her husband, has been alone for awhile. But then when her first true love, his brother, comes back to rejoin the community she has trouble accepting the feelings that come back. She is still very hurt by his leaving her, but she still feels quite a bit of emotion for him as well.

One Child follows Sarah and David as they cope with the first anniversary of her miscarriage. On a snowy Christmas they have even more surprises as an English couple is stranded in the storm and takes refuge at her house. The woman is very pregnant and worries that early labor will come on while they are trapped by the snow. And Sarah isn't sure how she feels about helping this woman with her child when she so desperately wants one of her own.

All the characters, like most Amish romances, were a little too perfect to be believable. While they had some hardships and flaws, they were still written to be a most wondrous of people. And while I know some Amish myself and don't doubt their general goodness, I know that they have more flaws than often what these books show. Still, all the romances were very nice and I thought all the couples were cute and meshed well together. Some of the side characters I would have liked to see more about, but alas, there were only three novellas in this book so it didn't happen.

For plots they were all pretty standard. Since they were shorter stories the issues resolved pretty quickly and there wasn't a whole lot of serious problems. Still, they were nice charming quick reads and I enjoyed them. I'd have to say my favorite was probably "One Child" and my least favorite was "A Choice to Forgive." I just found the story more compelling for the one and the story I didn't like was kind of hurried. Since these are Amish fictions they could be considered Christian fiction and religion is a strong element in them. Since these were about the same groups of people, I thought for having three different authors the stories and characters were kept well in sync with all the different details.

Not a bad collection of stories. If you like Amish fiction, you'll probably like these.

An Amish Christmas
Copyright 2009
440 pages including recipes and reader's guide