Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Joyful-Shelley Shepard Gray

Joyful
Shelley Shepard Gray
Avon Inspire, Sep 2 2014, $12.99
ISBN: 9780062204509

In Sugarcreek, Ohio, with his parents in heaven, Randall Beiler struggles keeping the family farm viable and worries he is failing his younger siblings who still live there with him; as the older ones left them to move on with their lives.  Thus seeing no immediate future, Randall ends his long term relationship with Elizabeth Nolt though he loves her.

To his chagrin, his brother hires Elizabeth to cook and perform other household chores.  Needing money since her mother abandoned her and her grandmother, Elizabeth hesitantly accepts the position.  Fearing his beloved will see him as a loser, just as he believes his family does, Randall loathes the arrangement.

The third Return to Sugarcreek Amish romance (see Thankful and Hopeful) is an entertaining second chance if the stubborn male would set aside his fear of failure.  Although several minor subplots involving other residents distracts from the prime storyline of "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Book of Proverbs), this is an upbeat Joyful contemporary.


Harriet Klausner

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