The bridesmaid -- The secret keeper -- The photograph.
Summary:
The bridesmaid: Twenty-seven-year-old Joanna Kurtz has made several trips to the altar, but never as a bride. The single young Amish woman is a closet writer with a longing to be published something practically unheard of in her Lancaster County, Pennsylvania community. Yet Joanna's stories aren't her only secret. She also has a beau who is courting her from afar, unbeknownst even to her sister, Cora, who, though younger, seems to have suitors to spare. Eben Troyer is a responsible young Amish man who hopes to make Joanna Kurtz his bride, if he can ever leave his parents' farm in Shipshewana, Indiana. Yet with his only brother off in the English world, intent on a military career, Eben's hopes for building a life with his dear Joanna are dimming, and patience is wearing thin. Will Joanna ever be more than a bridesmaid? The secret keeper: With her love for all things old-fashioned, Jennifer Burns has often been told she's an "old soul." But no one expected her to set aside her modern life in favor of the Old Order Amish world. Yet Jenny adopts Plain dress and settles in with Samuel and Rebecca Lapp, while she works as mother's helper for the bishop's wife. And the people of Hickory Hollow are curious about the beautiful young seeker--one handsome Amishman in particular--and Jenny faces many challenges in the Proving time the brethren set for her...challenges of the heart as well as the spirit. The photograph: Eva Esch and her sisters are in a predicament. With the passing of their widowed mother, Eva's older brother plans to move his growing family into the Eden Valley farmhouse where they all grew up, leaving little room for his three single sisters. Unless they marry within the year, the only apparent option is for two sisters to go to Indiana to live with an elderly great aunt. Eva hopes to be married, but she isn't sure she wants to give up her sweet shop for the life of a farmer's wife. And she can't see how her prospects would be any better in Indiana. When younger sister Lily disappears in the night, leaving only a brief note, Eva fears she has been wooed away from the People by an outsider. Then Jed Stutzman, a young Amish buggy maker from Ohio, shows up at Eva's market stand in Lancaster with a photo of a Plain young woman. Eva feels powerfully drawn to the charming stranger--but the woman in the forbidden photograph is no stranger at all.
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