The Farmer’s Instant Family Jeremiah Stoltzfus hopes the Amish community of Harmony Creek will provide a fresh start…until days before closing on his new farm, he finds a beautiful trespasser. Mercy Bamberger claims the property is hers, promised by her late grossdawdi. Jeremiah can’t turn out the single mom and her daughter, nor can he leave. His solution: temporarily sharing the farm until … farm until ownership is settled. Once a city kid adopted by a Mennonite family, Mercy yearns to make the farm a haven for unwanted children. But living beside the handsome Amish farmer has her yearning for everything that’s eluded her…laughter, love and a forever family.
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AN AMISH ARRANGEMENT by Jo Ann Brown is the seventh book in the Amish Hearts series. It’s the wonderful story of Jeremiah Stoltzfus and Mercy Bamberger and centers around a 60 acre farm in Harmony Creek Hollow, New York.
Jeremiah, bought a farm sight up seen through correspondence with the property owner. All that’s left is signing the deed to transfer the ownership of the farm upon his arrival. Jeremiah feels he’s accomplishing two goals with this purchase. He can leave the hurt of the past behind him while beginning to do what he really loves – farming, and he is helping to establish a new Amish community. However, he’s shocked to find on arrival that the farm house is occupied by the previous owner’s granddaughter and her child and finds that the seller has passed away since he’s last correspondence.
Mercy is saddened by the passing of her grandfather, Rudy, but she sees Come Along Farm, the name given her grandfather’s farm when she was a child and the farm that he had always promised her, as a new start for both her daughter and herself as well as a means to fulfill a dream of have a retreat for city kids. A project she looked on as a way of paying it forward. After her sad past as an orphaned city kid, where would she be if not for the love of strangers and being adopted by a Mennonite family!
Each with plans for the farm, but consideration for the other’s dire situation, they decided to both remain on the property until the legalities can be figured out. Regardless of who wins, someone’s dreams are going to be crushed. Where would Mercy go? There’s no one or no place to go back to. She’s got enough money – maybe – to fix up the farm and the expenses of opening the retreat, but she sure doesn’t have enough to purchase property some place else. Besides her love and memories are on this piece of property. Jeremiah doesn’t want to go back home. Yes, he could go back to woodworking, but farming is his true love. His fresh start is here leaving a broken relationship behind him. Plus he’s agreed to help establish this new community. They are depending on him. There are no other farms available to buy in the area.
Will their sharing the farm have them seeing the other’s side more clearly? Is either willing to give up on their dream to achieve the other ones? Can Jeremiah show Sunni that he’s not there to hurt her mother? Can an Amish man and a Mennonite woman find mutual ground? Is it possible for both dreams to come true?
AN AMISH ARRANGEMENT is an amazing story of overcoming hardships, compassion for our fellow man, love finding a way to work things out, and faith the God has a plan for us – even if it’s different than what we think it is. Jo Ann Brown weaves a story that tugs at your heart strings as we want each to come out the winner. Maybe the true winner is the one with the most to gain – a very special little girl that wishes to be loved unconditionally and only wants a place to call home and parents to love her. Definitely a FIVE STAR book!
I really enjoyed this different Amish read, and really makes you think about the legalities of buying property.
Can you imagine thinking you are a day away from owning a property, and because you are not from the area the owner is allowing you to go in early, you do and there is someone else there making themselves to home. Now what?
The author has us really wondering when an attraction happens between the two, one Amish and one Mennonite, one with children and one without, one driving a horse and one a car, can it be?
Love all the compassion shown here for the less fortunate, and the time and help to try and make things better.
This is a story that will linger with you long after the final page has been turned, I would love to go and spend some time with these big-hearted people.
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Harlequin and was not required to give a positive review.