Starting from Scratch 

Lancaster Discoveries #2

Paperback, ebook

April 1, 2018

by Kate Lloyd (Author)

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harvest House Publishers 
• ISBN-13: 978-0736970235

An Old Flame Brings a Spark of New Hope

En Alt Maedel—an old maid.

At age twenty-nine, that's what Eva Lapp considers herself. And who could argue with her? Finding a good Amish husband at her age will be next to impossible. Plus, Eva's unwarranted bad reputation in Lancaster County precedes her. Maybe living the Englisch life would be better.

Squeezed out of her childhood home by her brother's boisterous family, Eva finds lodging and a new job managing a small café at a local plant nursery. But the challenge of her new position isn't enough to distract from her current predicament.

To Eva's surprise, her first love, Jake Miller, suddenly returns to Lancaster County. Flooded with emotions and filled with questions about Jake's past, can Eva trust what she's feeling?

Jake and Eva face many obstacles in their quest for a fresh start in the community, but perhaps with God's help, they can find the redemption they both desperately seek.

My thoughts:  STARTING FROM SCRATCH is a great new Amish romance from acclaimed author Kate Lloyd.  Written in first person, you are in Eva's head and privy to only her thoughts and opinions, which leaves the reader guessing. Will Eva find someone to love? Jake is back, but rumors abound that he'd married another. Has he? What about Mark, a younger Amish guy five years Eva's junior who seems smitten with her? Or Stephen, a Mennonite man who seems interested? Or the widowed bishop?  A love dilemma with many angles and I was left guessing, forming opinions and changing my mind as I got to know each character.

I felt for Eva forced out of her home by her brother's wife  and hired at a job she really wasn't prepared for.  Manager of a restaurant when she could barely cook and didn't read a recipe all the way through before starting? God must have been laughing at that. Add in a rather grumpy Italian widow who disapproves of everything Eva ever does and judges her on her past, an Amish teen with a major crush on one of Eva's prospective beaus and  thunderstorms galore (God's judgement on Eva?) and you have a page-turner sure to hold you captive from start to finish. 

Kate Lloyd expertly wrote a character who his vulnerable and hurting, one I couldn't help but root for. 

I was given a copy free, all opinions are my own.