A Plain Leaving (The Sisters of Lancaster County #1) by Leslie Gould - I gave this one five stars!

A Plain Leaving (The Sisters of Lancaster County #1)by Leslie Gould (Goodreads Author)Gould Offers a New Amish Series in Idyllic Lancaster County:

This was one of the best Amish stories I’ve read in a very long time!  It had a mystery involved, a romance, a family drama, and a clash with the bishop!  Loved the book.  Read it in one day. I couldn’t put the book down the author is a really great writer.  I’ve read a lot of Amish books, I’ve always found them fascinating, a lot of Amis live around the town my Grandmother lives in, and I always wondered how and why they did the things the way that they did.  After ready many Amish stories this one stood out for me, I really believe if you are interested in the Amish and their lives, if you  pick up this book you’ll  really enjoy reading it.  I did!I received the book as a gift from the author and Bethany House Publishers..  It was sent with no strings attached the author just hopes I will like it and tell my friends.  Of course, I will, I loved the book!
At age twenty, Jessica Bachman left her two beloved sisters and her Amish community after clashing with the new bishop about her role in the family and the future of their farm. She tried to convince Silas Kemp, who'd been courting her for two years, to join her, but when he said no, she fled anyway.
Three years later, she returns home for the first time since leaving Lancaster to attend her father's funeral. Her arrival back revives all sorts of emotions--yearnings and sorrows alike. Jessica knows things will never return to how they were. But in seeing Silas again, she can't help but wonder what might have been.
Struggling to decide where her next step should take her, she learns the story of a Revolutionary War-era ancestor that echoes her own choices. Will Jessica leave her family and community forever, or is there peace and healing and love yet to come?

Deck The Halls by Donna Alward – 5 Stars - Loved this book!

This book was seriously a heart breaker in many ways before it built to a great ending.  It starts out with a man who has been for years homeless a veteran with serious PTSD and a case of guilt that really breaks him down.  He’s alive when his brothers in arms are not.  He knows he should have contacted the family of his friend and tell them what happened to their brother, he just can’t. He feels so guilty due to the circumstances surrounding his best friend’s death that he couldn’t contact them. He went downhill so fast that he lived on the streets and in homeless shelters for years and then one holiday when he’s gotten a job working in the Ladybug Garden Center and actually has a small apartment to live in, a family member comes looking for him.  He absolutely doesn’t want to talk to Amy, she wants closure and he doesn’t’ want to talk about it. She can’t believe when she finds him that he is the same man that left with her brother to go to war in the Middle East. She decides that she isn’t leaving until she receives that explanation.  Christmas will work its magic on he and Amy before it’s over and the book was a really engrossing read. I do highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a great Christmas book with a veteran and a family member who were attracted to each other prior to the war.  See how Darling Vermon and Christmas works to help them get around all of their problems.

I received this book through Netgalley.com in the kindle format and this is my review in exchange for the great book.  I loved it and give it five stars.

Description as found on NetGalley.com:

With shades of It’s a Wonderful Life, one man must face his past to find his future this Christmas.

In the last year, George's life has drastically changed. The formerly homeless veteran now has a job he likes, a family in the residents of Darling, VT, and for the first time in years, a home. But while his present is good, he's still haunted by the past, a past that appears shortly before Christmas when the older sister of his brother-in-arms hunts him down and finds him in Darling, working at the Ladybug Garden Center.

Amy’s looking for closure for her family after her brother's death in the Middle East, but the serious man she finds working in Vermont doesn’t resemble the soldier she remembers from years before. This man is hardened and yet somehow fragile, too, and in her desire to find out what really happened to her brother, she learns more about George than she ever expected.

With a little Christmas magic and the whole town supporting them, can these two bruised hearts make a future together?

Someone to love by Donna Alward Darling Vermont #2 - Four Stars!

Ethan is a fire fighter who has to adorable boys, who are also a handful.  Ethan is a handful.  He lost the love of his life and no longer believes that there is anyone out there that can finish his family and make them all happy. He and his first wife pledged their love on The Kissing Bridge, which is supposed to ensure lifelong happiness.  They had that until she died.  He feels there is no one else.

Willow returns to Darling, Vermont a changed girl.  She has overcome her past and owning her own business has strengthened her character in a great way!  She isn’t looking for love and absolutely doesn’t believe that there will be anything between her and Ethan!  She opens her Purple Pig Café and is busy with that.  She and Ethan eventually get on the same page, although they both fight it.

The book is a great romantic tale, one of three I believe.  They can all be read as a standalone.  This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review by NetGalley.com.  I gave it four stars.

From NetGalley.com

Ethan Gallagher is a firefighter in Darling, Vermont, who followed tradition and pledged his love on the Kissing Bridge to ensure lifelong happiness. A few years later, he's a widower with two rambunctious boys who no longer believes in magic. But even he has to admit that free-spirited Willow Dunaway fills him with wonder...and an attraction he cannot deny.

Willow's come back to Darling a different girl than the one who left after high school. Overcoming her past and owning her own business has made her into a strong, independent woman. Single dad Ethan appeals to her in a way she didn't expect, even though settling down is the last thing on her mind. But after fire destroys the local food bank, the town rallies, and a fling between Ethan and Willow leads to unintended consequences. Can they find a way out of their heartbreak to make a home in each other's hearts?

A Season Of You by Emma Douglas - Cloud Bay #1 - Four Stars!

A Season With You (Cloud Bay #1) by Emma Douglas

I think I read the books in this series out of order, perhaps?  I thought for sure I had read about the festival at Cloud Bay before.  Either way, I hadn’t read this book.  Loved the romance at Christmas time!  Great story of a man who falls in love at first sight and never lets Mina Harris know, she’s married.  She lost her husband to a drunk driver and five years later Will figures even after all of this time she won’t want anything to do with a guy who runs a distillery even though it wasn’t his bar the fellow was drinking at prior to hitting her husband.  She has a freak accident and Will comes to her rescue.  She can’t get him out of her mind, and decides to have a wildly weird Christmas fling, it’s just mistletoe-inspired, right?  Only Will doesn’t believe that he’ll go along with anything if he can be with Mina even if it is during the Christmas Festival and they are supposed to go back to normal, going their separate ways at the end.  Can they, do it?  I never believed so although the story doesn’t take you in that direction.  You’ll have to pick up this passionate Christmas-inspired romance story to see how things happen and how they end up.  I know romances always have a happy ending, but do they?  Give it a read I think you’ll like it.

I received this book through NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review.  It was in a kindle format.

Description as found on NetGalley.

It's Christmastime in the quaint island town of Cloud Bay, where love is always in season... Will Fraser has believed in love at first sight since the day he first laid eyes on Mina Harper five years ago. There was only one problem: She was happily married. Then, when Mina's husband was killed by a drunk driver, Will figured she'd want nothing to do with a guy who owns a whiskey distillery. So he's kept his feelings locked away, knowing that not even a Christmas miracle would be enough to melt Mina's heart. . . Mina believes her days of true love are behind her. Since losing her husband she's kept to herself, content to do her own painting and stay out of the limelight that comes with her famous family. But when, after a freak accident, Will comes to her rescue, Mina can't quite get him out of her mind. As curiosity turns into a fling during Cloud Bay's first Christmas Festival, she finds it harder to convince herself that her feelings for Will are just mistletoe-inspired. Could Mina be ready to lay the past to rest and finally admit that what she really wants for Christmas--and forever--is Will? 

Many Sparrows by Lori Benton - Engrossing read! Five Stars!

Many Sparrows

by Lori Benton (Goodreads Author)

I loved this book!  Clare Inglesby is left with just her little boy, waiting for her husband to bring help.  She doesn’t’ find out til later that he was attacked and stripped of his hair by a passing Indian.  She went into labor and left her boy long enough to be out of sight while giving birth because she felt her son didn’t need to hear her suffering labor pains waiting for the new baby to be born.  Unbeknownst to her a passing Indian took her son Jacob and she is willing to do anything to get him back!  She is found having labor by Frontiersman and adopted Shawnee Jacob Ring.  He promises Clare to take her into the wilderness to find the Indian’s that have taken her son.  They find the Shawnee party that took her boy, but it Is too late.  Jacob’s own sister who had lost her child and husband and has been very sad, and the ones who had her boy gave him to her in order to cheer her up, and the adoption ceremony has already happened.  There is no real way that Jacob can get her boy back after that happened. Jacob was renamed Many Sparrows, after a small story in the bible.  Rain Crow absolutely does not want to give up her new son.  Clare was very upset and had risked her life many times with the Indians trying to get close to her son.  She has no idea that her Uncle who had been expecting the little family for a long while and he is looking for her.  She won’t leave without her son.  This book was very interesting in that it told of many traditions of the Indians and how they lived.  The author describes all of it very well.  Clare is so brave and she lives among the Indians for quite a while with the hopes that Rain Crow will realize that Jacob will not behave and be her son, he’s seen his Mother knows she is alive and she’ll do anything to get her son back!  She had a daughter on the trail and she doesn’t hardly look at her daughter only doing very little to care for her, just breast feeding her, but she lays her aside while looking for her son Jacob.  This book was such a gift to me, it is inspirational, with many quotes from the bible, and the realism of living among the Indians gave the book such truth! I loved this book and gave it five stars. 

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review." This is my review as promised.

Description as found on Blogging For Books:
ABOUT MANY SPARROWS
Either she and her children would emerge from that wilderness together, or none of them would…

In 1774, the Ohio-Kentucky frontier pulses with rising tension and brutal conflicts as Colonists push westward and encroach upon Native American territories. The young Inglesby family is making the perilous journey west when an accident sends Philip back to Redstone Fort for help, forcing him to leave his pregnant wife Clare and their four-year old son Jacob on a remote mountain trail.
When Philip does not return and Jacob disappears from the wagon under the cover of darkness, Clare awakens the next morning to find herself utterly alone, in labor and wondering how she can to recover her son…especially when her second child is moments away from being born.
Clare will face the greatest fight of her life, as she struggles to reclaim her son from the Shawnee Indians now holding him captive. But with the battle lines sharply drawn, Jacob’s life might not be the only one at stake. When frontiersman Jeremiah Ring comes to her aid, can the stranger convince Clare that recovering her son will require the very thing her anguished heart is unwilling to do—be still, wait and let God fight this battle for them?

About Lori Benton:
 Lori Benton was raised east of the Appalachian Mountains, surrounded by early American history going back three hundred years. Her novels transport readers to the eighteenth century, where she brings to life the Colonial and early Federal periods of American history. When she isn’t writing, reading, or researching, Lori enjoys exploring and photographing the Oregon wilderness with her husband. She is the author of Burning Sky, recipient of three Christy Awards, The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn, Christy-nominee The Wood’s Edge, and A Flight of Arrows.