This is my first time to participate in a blog tour with WaterBrook Press and Multnomah Books. I’m SO EXCITED about this opportunity for several reasons. 1) I’m reading books by authors I might not have picked up or known about before. 2) They send me the book for free plus two more additional books which I can give away here on my blog. 3) Deadlines keep me on track so I love that they send me books with deadlines that I have to meet or I wouldn’t be able to participate in the blog tour! YEA! So. Here goes the first review:

When the Soul Mends is the 3rd and final book in the Sisters of the Quilt Series by Cindy Woodsmall. First, I should mention that out of necessity to make sure I finished reading this book in time to post the review today, I had to read this series not only out of order, but completely backwards. I had hoped that I could at least be able to read the 1st book before the 2nd, but that didn’t happen because of when they became available at the library.

Since I hadn’t read the first two books, I was so glad the author included a listing of the main characters in the front of the book as well as some verbage that was unfamiliar to me. That was extremely helpful in figuring out who was with which family, what they did, how the various families were connected, etc. YEA! Great feature.

This story starts out with Hannah returning to her Amish community for a visit after being away for a couple of years. She was called upon to return home in the hopes that a visit from her will help her sister who has mental problems which supposedly resulted from Hannah leaving the community a few years prior. Hannah is nervous about how she’ll be received since she left in disgrace when no one close to her who knew the truth about what happened one fateful night (in the first book) would stand up for her before the elders of the church. This book finds Hannah floating back and forth between her Englischer life responsibilites and the family and friends she has reconnected with from her Old Order Amish community.

I’ll leave all the many details out of this review so that you can fully experience them for yourself! I highly recommend this book. I LOVED it! While this book was quite enjoyable even without having read the first two books, the depth of Hannah’s decisions would probably make more sense if you had walked through the trials and tribulations with the characters throughout the first two books. I didn’t fully appreciate the man she chose to marry until after I had read the second book. Before that I thought she should have married the other guy. I’m guessing I’ll have an even better understanding of her decision after I read the first book which just became available at the library and I’ll pick it up this week.

I’ll leave you with this question to spark your interest: Will Hannah choose the Englischer world and the man who restored her hope, or will she heed the call to return to the Plain Life—and perhaps to her first love?

AUTHOR BIO:

Cindy Woodsmall is a best-selling author, who has garnered strong praise for the first two novels in the Sisters of the Quilt series. When the Heart Cries was a finalist for the ECPA Novel of the Year in 2007 and received the Reviewer’s Choice Award from the Road to Romance website. When the Morning Comes was named among the Best Books of 2007 for Crossings Book Club. Cindy lives in Georgia with her husband of thirty years.

I have 2 of these books to give away. Please leave a comment by December 13th if you’d like to be included in the drawing for these 2 books. Real life friends who don’t like to leave comments may email me privately to be included in the drawing!