Seasons of Tomorrow

The divine gift on intuition and insight that Rhoda Byler has been given to her by God, have many in the Amish community Orchard Bend, Maine questioning its validity. Most of the Old Order Amish believe that she is practicing witchcraft when the visions she has come true without any knowledge of just how she knows these things before they happen. Even Rhoda herself can't explain them, just that she does. Most of the times, she keeps these visions to herself because of the accusations being waged against her by her own people, most vocal by Samuel and Jacob King's father. They have moved from Pennsylvania to begin a new community and to establish Orchard Bend Farms, an apple orchard and canning business and have partnered with Rhoda Byler in part to her knowledge and experience in organic growing and tending the orchards. She was also in love with Jacob at one point believing they would be married.

But over time, secrets have caused a great divide between them. Jacob has a past that he has kept secret which involves another woman, Sandra and her daughter Casey and placed them all in legal hot water. When Rhoda herself wound up dealing with her own set of legal issues, instead of standing by her, Jacob left in an attempt to keep his secrets from hampering her investigation. Yet what they did was to cause Rhoda to gain support from Samuel, his brother, and over time, they both began to develop feelings for one another. Even though they tried to deny their feelings, eventually all three realized that the relationship between Jacob and Rhoda would never amount to what a marriage should be based on and Jacob called it off. Instead of resolving his bitterness against Samuel and Rhoda, Jacob moved away to give them all time to heal.

Now that the orchard is in full swing getting read for spring, an unforeseen tragedy will test everyone involved in unprecedented ways. Samuel's sister Leah is struggling with her own romantic feelings for Landon, an Englischer that was hired by Rhoda as her assistant to help build the business. Even though he understands the complications facing Leah by their love, he can't help but wonder if God has bigger plans in store for them. If they don't keep their feelings out of the public eye, Leah could face shunning by her community as well as bring down the orchard business for Rhoda and the King family if they get rid of Landon. They too could face shunning from their community for letting an Englischer causing one of their own to fall astray. But Leah is starting to come to an understanding of God's love through her faith by attending Landon's church and believes God might be calling her in a different direction. Once again if she walks away from her Amish faith, and leaves with Landon it will jeopardize more than just Orchard Bend Farms but isolate herself from her support system as well.

I received Seasons of Tomorrow by Cindy Woodsmall compliments Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers for my honest review and did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable one. This is the fourth book in the Amish Vines and Orchards Series. I've loved this series from the first novel and have been wanting more of it with each additional novel that Cindy writes. The best part of this one, is the recap of the entire series up to this point at the beginning. It provides a brief look at what has been happening to all the major characters through the first three novels so you can jump right in. I love when authors do this, not so much because new readers might pick this one up without realizing there are more in the series and might be lost, but for those of us that patiently wait until the next novel comes out, the time that has passed makes us forget where we left off without having to go back and reread the previous books. The best part of this series for me, is the gift of foresight that Rhoda is given by God. It isn't something she can control or make happen when she needs it, but when it happens like a day dream, she has to make sense of what is happening by the clues she is given, like looking through a photo album and seeing pictures of her friends and then minutes later someone in those pictures is now missing. She isn't sure why that is, will they die, are they going to leave, or are they being removed for some other reason. Trust me, this series has been may favorite so far and can't wait for more. I easily give this one a 5 out of 5 stars.

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Seasons of Tomorrow by Cindy Woodsmall

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