Fearless Hope

Title: FEARLESS HOPE

Author: Serena Miller

Publisher: Howard Books

April 2014

ISBN:  978-1451660371

Genre: Amish

When an Amish woman falls for the New York crime writer who buys her family farm, she must decide whether to follow the longings of her heart or the rules of her faith.

When Hope Yoder loses her husband, she is left trying to support her two small children—and one on the way—however she can. She ends up taking a job as a part-time housekeeper for the Englisch man who has bought the farm that once belonged to her family.

Logan Parker is a bestselling crime fiction writer from New York City who accompanies his fiancée on a trip to Holmes County, Ohio, but the trip takes a strange turn when he sees an Amish farmhouse for sale. Intrigued by a strong sense of familiarity, he enters the house and is overcome with a feeling of deep peace. He’s never been to Ohio before, but something in this house feels right, and he purchases the farm to use as a retreat. Something about the peacefulness of the house frees him from the crippling writer’s block that threatens to ruin his career, and something about the quiet Amish woman who comes to clean his home makes him less and less excited about returning to New York and the woman he is supposed to marry.

Slowly, Logan and Hope are drawn together, and when they discover that they share a strange past, they must decide how that affects their future. Will Hope overcome her fear of embracing love again?

FEARLESS HOPE started with a death (I don’t like that sort of beginning). We watch her beloved husband killed and we know exactly how it happened and why. I wondered at the time how Ms. Miller would work a romance with the heroine not yet recovered from her husband’s death.

The book does start slow. Hope has a lot of grief and anger to work through, plus she’s pregnant and there is a lot of “who will hire a pregnant woman” thoughts.  Logan is not a religious person, living with a woman as married, and very wealthy. It was interesting how he came to Ohio and settled in the area, meeting war veterans and hiring Hope.

About midway through the book the story picks up some. I start to care for the characters and I wondered how Ivan Troyer’s family worked into the story. Then I got suspicious, decided where the story was going… and… it went there! By that time I was very engaged in the story. I loved FEARLESS HOPE, loved watching Hope find herself, watching Logan find himself, and watching them find each other. Great book. 4.5 stars. $14.99. 384 pages.