Customer Reviews

Lancaster Brides: A Merry Heart/Looking for a Miracle/Plain and Fancy/The Hope Chest (Inspirational Romance Collection)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lancaster Brides is a set of four stories about Amish life and loves. The first story is about Miriam, an Amish woman who has had her heart broken and doesn't trust men. The second story is about Rebekah, Miriam's niece. Rebekah is in a wheelchair because of a childhood accident. She must come to terms with her disability and risk her heart at finding love. (This story was my favorite!) The third story is about Laura Meade, a fancy woman, who goes to college in Lancaster and meets an Amish man that she wants to be with for the rest of her life. Can this spoiled worldly woman find happiness living a plain life? And finally, the fourth story is about Rachel, Rebekah's daughter. When her sister Anna gives Rachel her old hope chest will it give her hope that she can find love with the boy she dreams about?

These were four exciting and interesting stories. I don't usually read multiple-story books because I think the stories are too short and choppy. This book is definitely not that. Each story is well written and complete. Having Amish ancesters I found this book was very well researched and very respectful of the Amish. It was a great insight into the lives of these people who live their lives in such a plain and simple way. These stories will touch your heart and leave you feeling like you are neighbors with each of the characters in the book. Wanda Brunstetter did a wonderful job writing each of these stories. It is so good to read books about people who seem real and dimensional. I found this book and each of it's stories very refreshing to read. It is great to read a book without a lot of sex or violence in it and to read about people who have morals. This book is great for a young girl or teenager to read as well as a mother or grandmother.

Lancaster Brides is excellent reading with great characters and heartwarming stories. I can easily see this book as being passed down from mother to daughter as four treasured stories of love and happiness. I have loaned this book to my mother hoping she enjoys the stories as much as I have. This book is deserving of more than five stars and is a book to keep and read again and again!

I read this book having enjoyed two Heartsong Presents novels by Wanda E. Brunstetter and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Ms. Brunstetter takes us to Amish country and into the lives of one family over several generations in this collection of novellas.
It begins with A Merry Heart and Miriam Stolzfus's decision of whether to wed a widower after the man she is in love with marries another. In Looking for a Miracle, Rebecca Stolzfus begins her own business selling plants. Paralized she wonders if the man she's fallen in love with is in love with her best friend. In Plain and Fancy, Laura Meade has moved to Lancaster to pursue her education as a design student and finds herself falling in love with Eli Yoder. Will she be able to live a plain life? Finally in The Hope Chest, Rachel Beachy falls in love with her sister's boyfriend and learns about her own family history.
I enjoyed this book because each story flows into the next as we pass from one generation to the other. The secondary characters in each previous story find themselves at the forefront in the next. And as you read you find yourself caring about this family and the culture of the Amish. A good light-hearted weekend read.

Okay, I hardly EVER buy books that have multiple stories in them, but had heard that this one was very good. I was not disappointed. It is four stories about four women, Miriam is the first heroine, Rebekah is the second (she's in a wheelchair), Laura is the third and Rachel is the main character in the fourth.
What I liked so much about each of these stories, was, not only were they engaging and interesting, but I learned a lot about the Amish and their way of life. I'd recommend this book highly to anyone who enjoys these kinds of stories.

LANCASTER BRIDES is an inspiring anthology of four very good, excellent, in fact, complete novels about love and faith in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania Amish community. Author Wanda Brunstetter has researched her sources well and writes in a wonderful clear presentation. I couldn't put this book down and I'm sorry it's over! I usually send these Barbour inspirational romances to my sister and sister-in-law so they can enjoy them as well, but I have a feeling I might have to hang on to this one! These stories are, in fact, beloved, and I highly recommend LANCASTER BRIDES for all women, teenagers to senior citizens! It's a terrific ride with many basic insights into the Old Amish ways. It's also full of romance and faith. All in all, a good setting for these fine stories.

I love to read Ms. Brunstetter's books because they have so much warmth and history. I used to be a member of an Old Order Amish sect before being excommunicated for wanting to work in a hospital. The romance-side of the Amish life is one that very few ever hear about. Ms. Brunstetter is very good at portraying that in a sweet, smooth tone. I recommend her books whenever I am on tour! They are so good! Buy the book! I also recommend her new book, "The Storekeeper's Daughter."

Sicily Yoder aka Teresa Phillips

Author of, "Leaving Lancaster County", and, "The Conversion of

Sicily Yoder."

Wanda Brunstetter did a wonderful job with this book. I was leary about wheter I would enjoy it or not. I am happy to say I hope to see more from this author. In this book you will find great Amish Fiction. You have 4 long stories, each one tied together with characters from the last story. Each story is clearly developed and you get to know the characters intimately and care about each of them. If you have enjoyed the books by Beverly Lewis, this book will surely add to your enjoyment about the Amish. My favorite one in this book is about the English girl who fell in love with an Amish guy, but each story is truly a gripping tale. You will enjoy it as well.

I loved this book! I picked it up at a local store and could not put it down. The stories are so endearing. Each novel had me in tears (happily) at the end. Very sweet and full of love, I can't say enough good things about this book.

Great book. I couldn't put it down and wound up finishing it in 2 nights. All the stories are tied together from one generation to the next. Read it, you will love it!!! I hope to see more like this from this author.

I wish I could say I liked this book as much as the other reviewers, but frankly, I do not understand how they could give it five stars. 1. Above all, the characters in the book are not plausible... Their behavior is extremely inconsistent and unbelievable. 2. The author uses words that make the characters seem immature at times - For example, when someone says something with displeasure, the sentence often ends with "she hollered," "she whimpered", etc. Even if the protagonist is going through a growing experience, these words are ill-chosen and make the speaker seem like a child having a tantrum. 3. I understand when an attempt is made for the spoken dialogue itself to reflect country inflection/dialect, but although some authors have managed this in books I have read before, it just comes across as odd in the non-dialogue narration part here. I would keep it in the dialogue. (The constant dropping of "g" in "ing" words was annoying, for example. Without going back to examine them, this seemed more prevalent in the middle two of the four novels and I wonder what order the four books were actually written in.) 4. Young characters use expressions that only older people would use. I am not referring to the Amish, but to the English woman and her friends. The characters' speech and style of acting/dressing are inaccurate for supposedly cutting edge, modern 20-somethings. They date the author and the book. It was difficult to get through some of this because it was so implausible. 5. Aspects of the plot lines are stunningly similar. Two of the stories deal with women with bitterness - They both have their hearts transformed when the men they love find them at the scene of a buggy accident and rescue them. In fact, I think there was a buggy accident integral to the plot in each of the four stories. More originality would be welcome. 6. The author uses the word "cripple" an unbelievable amount of times in the story about the woman with paralyzed legs. I understand such phrasing being used when she is working through her own feelings of inadequacy, but this wasn't the only way it was used. I wonder if the author interviewed any real people who have gone through acceptance of a disability. I am not under the impression they appreciate paternalistic attitudes. We were obviously supposed to think the "crippled" girl was cute and sweet cuz she was so helpless, like the many times she had to be pushed around in her wheelchair and carried, but my impression of real people with disabilities is that they struggle against such ways of thinking and desire to be seen as capable - For example, I think a real person would be happy to go for a walk (self-consciously called a "wheelchair ride") in the garden with her suitor if she was pushing herself alongside him, but would likely only accept help if it were genuinely needed. I cringed at some of the phrasing and attitudes here.

The above unawareness of how "fancy" young people genuinely talk and of how people with disabilities might behave, as well as the other problems, made me also question how much firsthand knowledge she had of Amish ways of interacting - Would this really be how young people would interact when they are dating, such as the kissing, or is this just how she envisions it? Fixing some of the above problems in future books would lend better credibility that she had done her research.

but it was so poorly written, that I couldn't give it more than two stars........and the two stars I did give it were based mostly on the interest I have in the subject matter rather than the writing. I liked that the book was about the Amish, but found several of the characters so disagreeable that it was hard to get through those stories. I understand that Miriam was hurt and bitter, but she came across as slightly unhinged through the first part of the story. And, it made no sense that Amos would even want to marry her if she might be a bad influence on his daughter. What did he see in her, other than that she was upright and breathing? The same might be said for the character Laura. Other than being pretty, why would Eli love her? She was awful.
I liked Rachel and Rebekah well enough. That is what kept me reading. There were however instances where the wrong word was used to describe a mood or expression, and that made reading a bit awkward.
So, if you like the Amish, and if you can't find something else to read, purchase the book. Used. At a big discount. Otherwise pass on it.