Saving Gideon

"The rain turned slowly into snow. The change happened so gradually that Avery Ann Hampton hardly noticed the slushy drops had built up on the blades of her windshield wipers.

Great. Just great.

As if being in this backwoods part of Oklahoma weren't enough. First the rain...and now she had to deal with snow.

And slick roads.

And...heartbreak.

She should have stayed in Dallas, but no. Instead, she had wanted to surprise her fiance' by showing up in the Sooner State where he was scoping out land for on-location shoots. She would surprise him and tell him that he had won. She'd caved. He begged her to elope to Vegas with him, but she had been holding out for the big wedding: long, white dress; horse-drawn carriage; and doves released at sunset.

She parked next to her Mercedes - loaned to Jack for this trip - sitting off to one side. She stepped up to the unlocked motel room door, pulled it open, and saw...

Enough.

Enough to know that Jack had used her. Enough to know that he had never really loved her, and enough to know that he - like everyone else - had used her for her father's money.

As she continued to drive listening to the turn by turn directions from her GPS, she noticed the weather was getting worse and it was becoming more difficult to see. As she jumped at the sound of the GPS voice, and pulled the wheel to the left, she found herself hydroplaning in the mud and slush and flipping over and over again until she passed out while her car horn blared through the snowy night.

Gideon Fisher bolted upright. He body trembled. Sweat poured off him. He'd had the dream again. How many times in the last eleven months had he had that dream? More than he could count. More than he wanted to count. Even with his eyes open, he saw them still, his family, Jaime and Miriam. Every night he dreamed he could save them. Every night he failed.

As he shuffled into the kitchen and stoked the fire, a far-off wail captured his attention. It sounded like...well, it sounded like a car horn. He shook his head. His nearest Englisch neighbor was a two-mile walk through the pasture. They were good neighbors. They never gave him strange looks or tried to take his picture. And they never blew their car horn at this time of night.

Someone was in trouble. No one made a racket like that in the middle of the night without there being something wrong. He headed off down the road. Probably some irresponsible Englisch teenager with more money than sense. Most likely took the corner too fast for the weather and veered off the road. Gideon shook those thoughts aside as he drew nearer to the car. The clear light from the lantern flashed off the shiny silver paint - and even shinier chrome of a crumpled-up fender. He was no expert on Englisch automobiles, but he could tell this one was very costly and very damaged.

He wasn't sure what he would find, but it surely wasn't this wisp of a woman slumped over the steering wheel, her forehead pressed against the horn. As Gideon gently removed her from the car, and totted her small dog in his bag, he carried them both back to his house before they both froze to death in this weather. He could only hope she wasn't hurt internally, and that by moving her he hadn't sealed her death. He couldn't stand another life on his conscience." (pg 2-7).

In the debut novel from Amy Lillard, Saving Gideon, takes the reader into the lives of Avery Hampton, a wealthy Dallas socialite whose been struggling with finding a man who can truly love her despite her father's wealth, and that of Gideon Fisher, an Oklahoma Amish farmer whose been looking to find a way to restore his faith in people once again and begin to live a life without the loneliness that has been plaguing him. As feelings between the two grow, can they overcome their sheer differences, or will those differences pull them apart.

I received Saving Gideon by Amy Lillard compliments of B & H Publishing Group and Christian Fiction Blog Alliance book tours for my honest review. I simply love it when an author combines some of my favorite genres together to make a perfect blend of something new, in this case, Amish romance and contemporary romance. In fact, I often wondered what might happen if an English woman were to fall in love with an Amish man. How would they work through their differences? Would they be able to find common ground and still keep part of their former lives, or would it require a complete sacrifice on the behalf of one or the other? To find out what happens, you'll have to pick up a copy of Saving Gideon for yourself. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

For more information about Saving Gideon, Amy Lillard or where to pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

Saving Gideon by Amy Lillard

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