Mary's Christmas Goodbye
An Amish Romance
-
- $6.99
-
- $6.99
Publisher Description
Mary Stoltzfus is thirty years old, splashed with freckles, and unmarried. In her Amish world, that qualifies her to be called an old maid. She is living her quiet schoolteacher life in the Lancaster County Amish community when she gets a surprising invitation in the mail one day. Would she come to Montana to teach?
Of course not, she decides, fully at home in eastern Pennsylvania, where she can go out to eat in dozens of restaurants, do her laundry in a newfangled washer that’s powered by compressed air, and hire a driver if she wants to go farther than her horse and buggy can comfortably take her. What is there to do in Montana, she sniffs.
But soon she becomes annoyed by the cracks in the floor of her one-room schoolhouse, the noise of the nearby road, and the two eighth-grade boys who try to make toilet paper cigarettes and nearly burn down the privy.
Before long, Mary is on Amtrak, “just to take care of her curiosity,” she explains to her mother. She arrives at a desolate station and meets Arthur Bontrager, who had signed the invitation and has come to introduce her to Beaver Creek School, dirt roads, and the fancy shed where she would live. When she settles into this world of mountain ranges and pine-tree majesty, her old buried questions—about why no man had ever been her match—have come along to live with her. After she’s injured by wild dogs on her walk home from school, Mary faces new questions. Is she weak if she accepts a Bouvier des Flandres dog from Arthur’s friend? Who is the young woman in the photo at Arthur’s house? And why does she suddenly care? Does she really belong back in Lancaster?
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Customer Reviews
Loved it!
Christmas Bride in Pinecraft
is definitely worth buying and reading - even though there was a little bit of misunderstood info. First, I LOVED that they showed how disabled persons not only can do their part and want to - but they need to be needed, just like all of us!! But as someone who has helped felony crime victims in over 20,000 cases - including thousands of separate robberies and burglaries - I hated to see a myth included, that they probably broke in because their family was in need. That is actually a common myth but a rare event! Most of the burglars and robbers that I ran into in court were doing it for money to feed addictions, or as a gang business. In fact, most of the felons I saw in court already had jobs, and pretty well-paying ones, but they preferred the easy way out! I do realize that I come with my own biases since I saw so so many hurting victims, four times per week in court (high crime volume area!). Most of my victims were minorities and some of the crime victims were immigrants. So I naturally cringe every time I see someone else saying people commit crimes out of hunger etc.! : ) But I APPRECIATE the sympathetic heart of the author, to try to assume the best of people. I imagine that she is not only a good writer but also a blessing to her family and friends!
There was a thoought-provoking and wonderful quote about friendship: "...Sometimes a person has to be a good enough friend to risk having someone they care about be upset with them." So true, so profound!
These characters are wonderful, the book was very well-written and I am very interested in Pinecraft. I WILL be reading this author's work again!!