Mary Ellis - Sarah’s Christmas Miracle

An emotional insight at an Amish family whenever one of the kids left for the city.

Sarah's Christmas Miracle

Mary Ellis

Harvest House, Aug 1 2010, $10.99

ISBN: 9780736929684

Sarah Beachy seems very contented living in her small Amish community in Ohio. She loves her family, has an interested beau Adam Troyer, and enjoys her work at the Country Pleasures Bed and Breakfast where Englishers from all over the state come to stay for a taste of the Amish.

Perhaps the only negative is her older brother Caleb left the People to join a construction company in Cleveland. Sarah wants Caleb home for Christmas after being away for over four years. This Thanksgiving she decides, over the objections of her parents, to go to the big city, find her sibling and persuade him to come home.

This is an exciting family drama as most of the tale follows the courageous heroine as a small fish in the big pond of Cleveland trying to find and convince her brother to come home. The story line is character driven and not just by Sarah as her Mamm prays to God to keep her children safe and bring them home while Adam struggles not to go after the woman he loves but instead places his faith in God and her. Not a romance by any stretch, and the Caleb situation is too simplified as one wonders "How you're going to keep him down on the farm after he has seen" Cleveland.

Harriet Klausner