With her heart – and her loyalty – on the line, can she let true love in her life?
Every year, young Amish men descend on the cozy little town of West Kootenai, Montana, arriving in the spring to live there for six months and receive ‘resident’ status for the hunting season in the fall. They arrive as bachelors, but go home with brides! Lydia Wyse, a book editor from Seattle who grew up Amish, returns to the small community of West Kootenai, Montana to give comfort to her father after her mother’s death.
She is drawn back to the familiar Amish ways after finding her mother’s most precious possession, a Promise Box of prayers and scripture. What her publisher sees, though, is an opportunity for a sensational ‘tell-all’ book about the Amish. Lydia soon finds herself falling in love with Amish bachelor Gideon Hooley. She wants nothing more than to forget her past and look forward to a future as an Amish bride.
Will the pain of her childhood-and her potential betrayal of her community-keep her from committing her whole heart?
The Promise Box is an amazing story of faith and yet different from most other Amish books out there. Lydia doubts her own value in God’s eyes after learning that her conception was the result of rape – and it changes her entire life. While she questions her place as an Amish woman, her larger question of why a good God allows bad things to happen is one asked by nearly everyone at some point in their lives.
Lydia’s journey to find the answer to that question makes up the bulk of this book – which, of course, includes a sweet love story and a beautiful mountain setting. (Somehow reading books about ugly swamps is just not appealing to me! I’d rather live beautifully and vicariously through the characters.) Her journey, although full of hardship and loss, has a very Goyer-esque sweetness to it.
The book is titled after a special box kept by Lydia’s mother in which she wrote scriptural promises that she wanted to remember – a Bible diary, of sorts. I’ve seen this same type of ‘journal’ take many forms, but I especially like this one, and it made for an interesting tool of plot advancement throughout the story.
The Promise Box is a sweet journey of love, hope, and reconciliation. I love how Goyer writes about a realization that we each must come to: that we are all valuable in God’s eyes because He made us, not because of circumstances or anything that we’ve done, but because of who He is and what He has done. Lydia’s story is well worth the read.
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Tricia Goyer is a busy mom of six, grandmother of one, and wife to John. Somewhere around the hustle and bustle of family life, she manages to find the time to write fictional tales delighting and entertaining readers and non-fiction titles offering encouragement and hope. A bestselling author, Tricia has published thirty-three books to date and has written more than 500 articles. She is a two-time Carol Award winner, as well as a Christy and ECPA Award Nominee. In 2010, she was selected as one of the Top 20 Moms to Follow on Twitter by SheKnows.com. Tricia is also on the blogging team at MomLifeToday.com, TheBetterMom.com and other homeschooling and Christian sites. In addition to her roles as mom, wife and author, Tricia volunteers around her community and mentors teen moms. She is the founder of Hope Pregnancy Ministries in Northwestern Montana, and she currently leads a Teen MOPS Group in Little Rock, AR. Tricia, along with a group of friends, recently launched NotQuiteAmishLiving.com, sharing ideas about simplifying life. She also hosts the weekly radio podcast, Living Inspired.
Learn more about Tricia at www.triciagoyer.com.
I received a free copy of The Promise Box from LitFuse Publicity in exchange for an honest review.
