Barefoot Brides-Annie Jones

Barefoot Brides
Annie Jones
Steeple Hill, Jan 2009, $6.99
ISBN: 0373786425

In Santa Sofia, Florida the Cromwell females and the Weatherby father and daughter are excited with the discovery that each says must have been the Lord’s doing. Thirty years ago the ex-husband of Dodie Cromwell abducted their youngest daughter from their Atlanta home and vanished. Dodie raised her two oldest Jo and Kate but never gave up hope. Local fish fry king William Jay Weatherby adopted an abandoned infant left at his renowned restaurant in Santa Sofia, Florida, a town the Cromwells have visited on vacation. The rest is the Lord’s doing.

Whole Moxie excitedly adjusts to three blood females in her life, Sun Times editor R. Hunt Diamante tells her tale in his paper. Jo struggles with doing God's mission as she sets up her mission, but has hope in her faith in the Lord and minister Travis Brandt to guide her. Dr. Kate realizes she loves Dr. Vince Merchant, a new grandfather, so she prays for a second chance with him as they prepare to marry.

In the second Barefoot saga (see THE BAREFOOT BELIEVERS, not read by me) is an engaging character driven drama as the four females struggle to form a revised extended family while each of the three younger generation women have the Lord in their life and a man. Fans of inspirational tales will relish the forging of relationships with one another and with the Lord as the siblings learn that God may work in mysterious ways that seem a long time to the Cromwell women, but they also know his strategic plan for his flock somehow works.

Harriet Klausner