Mattie Diener can barely keep it together. A young Amish widow and mother of two young children, she faces the lingering heartbreak of lost love, her son’s mysterious illness, and a torrent of accusations that threaten to undo her.
Bo Lambright is a fast-rising social services investigator whose high-society mother won’t rest until she finds his Mrs. Right. Despite Bo’s worldly success, the raw ache of a shadowy past and a series of unsettling dreams have left him reeling.
When Mattie and Bo cross paths, all signs point to disaster. Yet as they face a crucible of trials and tragedies together, longings begin to stir that seem destined only to end in more heartbreak. Is a miracle possible—not only of healing but of forbidden love? What secrets lie in Bo’s dreams? And will Mattie find the courage to face her uncertain future . . . or will she simply run away?
Ruth Reid’s newest book will restore your faith in miracles. A fantastic story of faith and restoration, I enjoyed the way the many plot twists made it possible for big fanfare finish – in a simple Amish way, of course.
Throughout the story Bo and Mattie both face adversity of many kinds. Reid expertly foreshadows some of it while keeping other events a surprise to the reader, but none of these things would be easy for most adults to handle. The way that each of these characters face their problems differ, but I most enjoyed the way that Bo stood up for what he believed to be right despite the potential for problems in his own future. His stance is particularly inspirational in this day and age of lawsuits and so-called ‘intolerance.’
The beginning of the story was not an easy read for me, but not because Reid’s writing was less than excellent. Instead, she wrote so realistically that I grew quite angry on Mattie’s behalf and wasn’t sure I wanted to continue to read about the unfair injustice I could see coming her way. Having grown up in the same county as one of the largest, most traditional Amish communities in the world, I could see the writing on the wall – and it wasn’t spelling out a pretty message.
That message was an important one to us all, though, maybe exactly because of our lawsuit-hungry society: don’t judge on first impressions or appearances. I don’t in any way mean for this to have anything to do with bathroom laws or who-makes-whose cake; but how often do we assume that the person over there is that kind of person based solely in a single word, look, or incident? We may never know the damage we can do with that kind of assumption, but Mattie’s story stands as a testament to it.
Fortunately for the reader, it doesn’t end there. We also see the redemptive love that God has for us and the power that has to change relationships through the events that both Bo and Mattie live through. We find in this story that not everyone is whom we were led to believe, and that second chances are important. We learn that we can make a difference – whether it’s one word or one act or one person at a time.
Reid drew me in thoroughly to A Dream of Miracles in the very first chapter, and I couldn’t put it down. Find a copy and pick it up – I’m sure you’d enjoy this Dream, too.
I received a free copy of this book from LitFuse Publicity in exchange for an honest review.
