The Beloved Christmas Quilt

The Beloved Christmas Quilt is a wonderful collection of three short stories that span a generation of authors beginning with Wanda Brunstetter, who is a best-selling author of Amish novels, along with her daughter Jean and granddaughter, Richelle, who also have added their own stories to this book, that span an Amish families generation much like the Brunstetter women have.

Luella's Promise by Wanda Brunstetter takes readers in the beginning of the Ebersol family, beginning with Luella who was hired by Dena and Atlee Zook to help care for Dena and their son Daryl, as her health declines based on an issue with her heart. While Atlee works at his shop, Dena helps with housework and keeping Daryl busy while also helping Dena out as much as she can. They know the end is near and when she passes on a much beloved quilt to Luella as a way of saying thank you for being a friend and to promise to care for her family when she is gone, she never dreamed the turn her life would take as she spends more time with them.

Karen's Gift by Jean Brunstetter picks up the next generation that comes to the Zook family as their child Karen Allgyer grows and begins her own family. However when they discover her newborn daughter Nancy Anne is deaf, it begins to pull on the threads that held this family close. Her husband Seth pulls away to spend time hunting when he isn't working and with their parents so far away, Karen believes that it is time to move back home so she can have the love and support of both sets of parents.

In Roseanna's Groom by Richelle Brunstetter, the Zook family continues as the Roseanne Allgyer, Karen's daughter, finds herself preparing to be married, only to have her groom, John Beiler up and run away just as they are about to saw their wedding vows in front of family and friends. Without any explanation, he simply tells Roseanna, he can't marry her and moves away. Now left with picking up the pieces of her life, she tries to find a future while her heart is mending and that might be with someone who suddenly moves back unexpectedly. Will John realize his mistake before she gives her heart away to someone else?

I received The Beloved Christmas Quilt by Wanda, Jean and Richelle Brunstetter compliments of Barbour Publishing and Net Galley. These are three unforgettable stories of family, romance and the Amish faith, shared between three generations of writers but also written about three generations of one Amish family. I LOVE that they created this unique idea with each of them taking on a new generation and the beloved Christmas quilt that journeys along with them. There are delicious recipes tucked in to entice readers to try their own hand at making these wonderful dishes! I easily give this book a 5 out of 5 stars and just the simplicity of these three stories gives readers an opportunity to take them in one at a time as their busy schedules allow.

For more information about The Beloved Christmas Quilt, Wanda E. Brunstetter or where you can pick up a copy of this book today, please click on the links below:

The Beloved Christmas Quilt by Wanda, Jean and Richelle Brunstetter

You can find Wanda E. Brunstetter on Facebook to stay up to date with all her latest books.

To read more reviews on The Beloved Christmas Quilt, please visit Barbour Publishing's website.

Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing

There is such support for one another for those who live within the Amish community and often time it even extends to the Englisher's who reside within the city limits as well. That is what has always drawn me to Amish fiction is their strong faith and sense of community support. In Wanda Brunstetter's Amish Cooking Class series, The Blessing is the third book in the series that revolves around Heidi Troyer and her husband Lyle who live in Walnut Creek, Ohio. Learning that they may never have children of their own, Heidi decides to teach Amish cooking classes in small groups of 5 to supplement their income and to give her something to do. This is her second class she is preparing to teach and this time with different hopes.

She hopes that Kendra will follow through on her desire to give her baby up to the Troyer's to adopt since as a young mother she certainly can't afford to raise a young child on her own with her parents tossing her out once they learned she was pregnant. So in Heidi believes this might be her last class before she becomes a full-time mother. Again, she has 6 people signed up to join her class, Lisa Brooks is taking the class to inspire additional ideas for her catering business, Todd Collins is taking the class under the premise of wanting to learn how to cook, but has secret motives as a food critic, who wants to see just how good this food could be.

For Bill Mason, he's signed up because as the owner of a cabin he and a few buddies visit during hunting season, his cooking has left something to be desired and he hopes it might teach him to make something else that his friends won't complain about. Nicole Smith is the youngest and she is taking the classes to learn to cook as the oldest child trying to help out her family since her mom left for another man and alcohol, while leaving her to help raise her two younger siblings and still work on finishing up school. At least this gives her a much needed break from her family's expectations. For Allie Garret, her husband provided the cooking lessons as a gift to learn how to make some different dishes for her family. What they don't all realize is that this will be more than simply learning how to cook some delightful Amish meals but that they will also work towards helping one another out when they each have a need and all part of God's plan.

I received Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing by Wanda Brunstetter compliments of Net Galley and Barbour Publishing. In accordance with the new FTC Guidelines for blogging and endorsements, you should assume that every book reviewed here at Reviews From The Heart was provided to the reviewer by the publisher, media group or the author for free and were received, unless specified otherwise. Besides getting what I would call 6 different mini novels in one is the delicious mouth-watering recipes that conclude this novel, each of them being the very meals or dishes that the cooking class learns. I only wish I had an lovely Amish woman like Heidi to teach me how. It's almost like a therapy session for them as each person begins to share their burdens to one another and soon find themselves being helped along the way by one another. This is one of my bucket list items to spend a weekend on an Amish farm and learn more about their way of life and cooking by living off of what they grow and can make in most cases. I just don't think I'd be able to keep up. This is a wonderful series and worthy of 5 out of 5 stars.

For more information about Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing, Wanda Brunstetter or where you can pre-order a copy of this novel due out in early August 2017, please click on the links below:

Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing by Wanda Brunstetter

You can find Wanda Brunstetter on Facebook to stay up to date with all her latest novels.

To read more reviews on Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing, please visit Barbour Publishing's website. 

The Struggle

"Whatever your simple pleasures may be, enjoy them and share them with someone else. We sometimes take for granted the everyday things that give us a sense of joy and well-being. These simple things are often forgotten when problems occur in our lives." This is the moral of the novel, The Struggle by Wanda Brunstetter which is the third book in the Kentucky Brothers Series.

This time it's Timothy Fisher who feels compelled to leave his childhood home in Paradise, Pennsylvania to move to Christian County, Kentucky and follow in his brothers footsteps who have gone before him. First his twin brother Titus and then his half-brother Samuel left to find cheaper land and more of it than is available in Pennsylvania, but it's not the reason for Timothy. He's hoping that by moving to Kentucky, he can separate Hannah, his wife from her mother. Since they have been married, Timothy feels as though his marriage has been in jeopardy just because Hannah hasn't taken on the responsibilities he feels a wife should. She spends more time with her mother than with him and he's hoping a change in location might help.

Only Hannah isn't going to make it easy on him. She isn't the slightest bit willing to make this move and being an only child, her and her mother share a very close bond. She understands that she needs to be there for her husband but doesn't feel that moving them is the answer. Not only that but their only daughter, Mindy will also have to find new friends. So Hannah resolves to dig herself in and find ways to show Timothy that Kentucky isn't going to make her any happier and is crossing her fingers it will only be a matter of time before she's home again with her parents.

Since they are moving there in hopes of finding a home, they will have to live with Samuel and his children. Timothy is hoping that Hannah can find some friends through the women in his brothers lives, starting with Esther who Samuel is courting and is taking care of his home and children during the day while he works and in the evening hours, works part time at a Bed and Breakfast owned by an English women named Bonnie. Hannah feels that since she is staying there, she should assume the responsibilities of caring for the children and the upkeep of the house, but all it does is isolate her further from not only Samuel and Timothy but from Esther and the other women as well.



I received The Struggle by Wanda Brunstetter compliments of Barbour Publishing and Net Galley for my honest review and really enjoyed this Amish novel. In it we see that the more tightly we attempt to hold on to things and refuse to trust God, the harder it will be to deal with things when they are suddenly taken away. In this one, each set of characters is challenged with their own personal struggles, Timothy and Hannah are at odds in not only how to put their marriage back together but also how to deal with raising a family; Bonnie and her soon to be husband Allen, are dealing with some secrets from Bonnie's past that make wreck the opportunity to be married before she can accept his proposal and an unexpected English visitor to the B & B on Christmas Eve, throws a wrench into some Christmas plans with her own past.

In it all we can see the consequences of what happens when we fail to trust God and instead try to handle things ourselves. Sometimes it has tragic circumstances and often times it can simply be a matter of working things out by letting go, and letting God heal our past wounds, yet the message is simple, as believers we are never far from some kind of struggle and watching each of these characters deal with them, shows us that the best answer is faith in God, not matter how difficult it may be. I easily rate this one a 5 out of 5 stars! If you love Amish Fiction, then you definitely want to pick this one up!

For more information on The Struggle, Wanda Brunstetter, or where to pick up a copy of this book today, please click on the link below:

The Struggle by Wanda Brunstetter

You can also find the rest of the books in the Kentucky Brothers series to enjoy:

# 1 The Journey
# 2 The Healing

Love Finds A Way

I love it when you find a unique book that gives you more than what you were expecting and I find this in Wanda Brunstetter's novel, Love Finds A Way. This is a beautiful collection of three short romance stories that capture the essence of finding love in a wide variety of circumstances and offers hope when you think you have just about given up hope in finding love.

In the first story, Blueberry Surprise, we meet a widow, Loren Patterson who has spent the last year getting over the death of her husband Ron who was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident. Now living with her in-laws, she has been working two jobs to make ends meet while she put her husband through medical school and now is trying to pay off all the medical bills. She has given up the prospect of finding love again and spends most of her evenings working as a waitress at Farmen's Restaurant in Seattle, Washington. Taking the advice of her friend Chris and her mother-in-law, Ann, she returns to college to pursue her own education at Bay View Christian College as a music teacher. Evan Bailey is doing the same thing with his own life since leaving the Airforce and is now looking to further his own education at Bay View as a child counselor and hopes to also someday find a sweet Christian wife. In the meantime, he spends his evenings sampling online recipes in hopes that adding cooking to his skills will make him a marketable husband. Will they find the perfect recipe for love?

In the second story, Grandma's Doll, Shelia Nickels has come to Casper,Wyoming as her Grandmother prepares to sell her house and move into Mountain Springs Retirement Center. She tells Shelia to visit her home one final time and take anything she wants from the house before it's sold and she knows exactly what she is looking for. As she heads to the attic to begin her search, she discovers the treasure she is searching for, is missing, a Bye-Lo baby that was her favorite when she visited her grandparents house as a young child. When she asks her Grandmother about it, she learns it was sold to The Older the Better Antique Shop across town now owned by Dwaine Woods. It just so happens that fate intervenes today when her grandmother asks Dwaine to stop by to appraise a piano she needs to sell and he and Shelia will discover that there are more than material treasures to be found if they are only willing to look hard enough. Will they discover the true treasures of the hearts?

In the final story in this novel, Matchmaker 911, Wendy Campbell is the town of Plumer's barber after taking over from her father, Wayne, who has succumbed to the effects of old age and severe rheumatoid arthritis and she finds herself wondering if a woman working in a predominately man's world is really such a good idea since having so many guys at the shop trying to make a play for her only made things worse. Now she spends her time caring for her father at home. But her father wants to see her with a man of her own to care for and a social life besides running the shop and caring for him. However when she hears a siren and realizes it stopping at her house, she panics knowing her father is at home. Kyle Rogers is the responding paramedic who helped her father out at the hospital before and what is finds when he arrives will be an adventure of a life time.

I received Love Finds A Way by Wanda Brunstetter compliments of Barbour Publishing and Net Galley for my honest review and I have to say I love books like this one. They have so much in them that you truly feel like you're getting a deal having three wonderful Christian romance stories all in one novel. Each one is unique and shows how God works in the details to bring healing, hope and love back into the lives of people who feel they have to accept things they way they are instead of something so much more. I rate this book a true 5 out of 5 stars!

For more information on Love Finds A Way, Wanda Brunstetter or where to pick up a copy of this modern day romance collection today, please click on the links below:

Love Finds A Way by Wanda Brunstetter

You can learn more about Wanda by becoming a follower of hers on Facebook or by visiting her website.