I received a complimentary copy of this book from Jerry S. Eicher and was under no obligation to post a review. No compensation was received for sharing this review and all opinions are my own.
Series: Land of Promise #2
Published by Harvest House Publishers on June 1st 2015
Source: Jerry S. Eicher
Genres: Fiction, Christian, Romance, Amish & Mennonite
Pages: 352
In the second book of bestselling author Jerry S. Eicher's new Land of Promise series, Miriam Yoder is looking forward to her wedding day with Wayne Yutzy. But when beautiful Esther Swartz arrives to care for her ailing grandmother, Miriam is wary of Wayne's past relationship with her.
When storms rip through the small Amish community in Oklahoma, Miriam's daett arrives to help in the rebuilding efforts. Under pressure from Miriam's daett the relationship with Wayne is upended, leaving Miriam to wonder if she must now build her new life as a single Amish woman.
Book two in the Land of Promise series
A Blessing for Miriam is another great book by Jerry S. Eicher. This book is filled with a lot of personal sorrow from which Miriam, Shirley and Ivan all must recover from. In addition to the string of poor luck that these characters endured, there were moments where I downright disliked a few of the characters. I don’t mean this in a bad way, flaws in a book character brings life to a genre that is often written to be very idealistic and naive. Just because a person is Amish doesn’t mean they’re a really great person and I love that Jerry Eicher has made it a point of writing very real characters with very real character flaws.
This book covers a range of real life issues ranging from petty jealousy, temptation, backbiting and even lack of empathy and understanding. For a lot of modern readers, there may be times which you feel frustrated at Miriam’s lack of ability to make decisions for herself and relies heavily on the guidance of her parents and community rather than her own heart. I felt at times the underlying theme was that Miriam didn’t trust God enough to guide her either and therefore she relied perhaps too heavily on her relations to make decisions for her.
I did find a few mistakes in the book which were not caught by the editor. One such was slight mix-up of characters that caused me to reread a paragraph several times before I realized exactly what had happened. The name Wayne was used on page 189 when it should have said Ivan as the conversation was between Ivan and Laura.
The above excerpt and the highlighted parts confused me a little bit but it didn’t ruin the story in any way. I simply feel the need to point it out in case publishers decide to reprint in the future!
Overall this book is a solid 4 stars. It seemed to drag for me at times but is a very necessary stepping stone between book one and three.
About Jerry S. Eicher
Jerry Eicher’s bestselling Amish fiction (more than 210,000 in combined sales) includes The Adams County Trilogy, the Hannah’s Heart books, and the Little Valley Series. After a traditional Amish childhood, Jerry taught for two terms in Amish and Mennonite schools in Ohio and Illinois. Since then he’s been involved in church renewal, preaching, and teaching Bible studies. Jerry lives with his wife, Tina Eicher, and their four children in Virginia.
Sounds like a great book:) and I love the little changes you’ve made!! Looks great
Thank you so much! I’m excited to get the entire site upgraded! :)
I really enjoyed the 3 books about Miriam. Though in book 2 you identified Wayne’s sister who was killed in the tornado as “Joy.” In book 3 you called her Lois. I found other errors and words spelled wrong. Your proof reader, editor should have caught this.
Linda, I found mistakes too. This is a review site rather than Mr. Eicher’s website. I too pointed out the mistakes I’d found as well.