Never Far From Home

Title: NEVER FAR FROM HOME
Author: Mary Ellis
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
January 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7369-2733-8
Genre: Inspirational/Amish/contemporary

Emma Miller’s sixteenth birthday is fast approaching, and with it, interest from an English boy, James Davis. Emma has finished school, and started her own wool business, saving money to buy her own loom. Emma’s father, an Amish deacon, is quite strict with Emma, even to the point of wondering if she is overly ambitious with her own business. But when Emma starts seeing an English boy with a fast truck, Emma’s father has more to worry about.

Hannah Miller is newly married and still adjusting to a new husband with a daughter. Still, she’s upset when six months go by and she’s still not with child. But that is the least of her concerns when her husband seems to get all heavy handed, making huge decisions without her input—especially since things he decided to sell belong to her.

Emma is torn between the English world and the Amish. Is there a middle ground compromise? Or will she be forced to choose one over the other?

NEVER FAR FROM HOME is book two in Ms. Ellis’ The Miller Family series, but it is the first book I’ve read by this author. I was easily able to get an idea with what was going on in this series, even though I never read book one, but the series is obviously a continuation where one might have a better idea what happened if they had started with A Widow’s Hope.

The characters were a bit flat, and not three dimensional, and there is quite a lot of telling in the story, which kept me distant. Still, the message that this book brings home is a truth that we can all heed.

Ms Ellis apparently tried to write in the style of Beverly Lewis, but Mary Ellis’ voice is gentler, so it reads more like Wanda Brunstettler. Fans of Amish fiction will not want to miss this relatively new author’s efforts. $13.99. 298 pages.