Sara Harris

Rebekah’s Quilt by Sara Harris takes us back to 1868 where a group of Amish are crossing the United States to find a new home. Along the way, at an area known as The Pike in Indian Territory, they find an overturned wagon. They investigate and find that the adults have perished. They find a baby in a nearby bush. Samuel and Elnora Stoll have been married two years and they have yet to have a child. They take the sweet girl in their home. Twenty years later, Rebekah is grown and celebrating her birthday. She had her rumspringa with her best friend, Joseph. They both wish to become baptized members. We follow Rebekah, Joseph, the Stoll family, and the rest of the community as they experience life on the prairie. There are a series of events that happen. Life is unpredictable in the west as this Amish community discovers. Rebekah’s Quilt is a short, easy to read story. I liked the characters in the story especially Rebekah and Joseph. Joseph is such a kind man who is always there for Rebecca. The author immerses us in the daily life of the Amish. It is different from what we are used to in modern Amish books. We join them in their daily activities (cooking, laundry, milking, taking care of kids, giving birth, farming). Life is extremely unpredictable. The families only have each other to rely on (no fire department, no police, etc.). I enjoyed reading this charming story. This is a clean story that could be read by tweens on up. I hope we get more stories involving this group of characters. Rebekah’s Quilt is a sweet historical Amish tale with quilt quandary, a cute calf, a sudden snowstorm, busy brothers, a mother in the family way, a romantic rival, and a surprising stranger.… (mais)

I have been trying to get into cozy romance for ages, because (as much as I blog about smut and the world probably thinks I'm perpetually horny.....well....anyway...) there is definitely a large part of me that craves something more wholesome and fluffy a lot of the time. Yet, I really struggle with cozy romance. In my experience, the characters are TOO unbelievable. They don't act like human beings-and yes for fluffy subgenres, you do have to suspend your disbelief a little bit; cozy romance usually takes it too far. The characters are straight-up cartoon characters. On top of that, the humor is both too cheesy and too forced. Either be cheesy and be comfortable with the possibility of the joke flopping or make actually good jokes; you can't be both cheesy and ham-fisted.



So, for ages, I've been going with my taste for the fluffy and wholesome mostly unsatisfied. Hallmark movies are the only medium that's ever gotten that wholesome content just right in my opinion.



Until...





This Amish romance struck that balance of wholesome without being TOO corny perfectly. On top of that, the characters were actually believable. I mean...okay, not completely....there is an English character who decides to become Amish after spending one night with the Amish folks. That's not super realistic. But if you suspend your disbelief a smidge, it works. It's about as realistic as a Hallmark movie. Without the characters being slightly unrealistic, you couldn't get that great wholesome everything-is-tied-up-neatly-with-a-bow-at-the-end content. The characters are still human and their motivations make sense. I'd just say they are all a little better than real human beings. But, again, it's necessary for the genre.



This was like reading a Hallmark movie and I LOVED it!



You know, I actually have read some cozy books that were turned into Hallmark movies, and even those didn't work for me. In print, the characters were too cartoonish and corny.



With 'Rebekah's Quilt' we don't have any of the problems I usually find with clean romance. It's incredibly grounded for something so wholesome. A wholesome story can't ever be completely grounded (because real humans aren't wholesome), but I'd say it's as grounded as the subgenre allows it to be.



This brings me to my next point...I think I figured out why people love Amish romance. Even people like me, who devour works by Kafka and King and have read enough demented smut to fill an omnibus ten times over, crave something more wholesome sometimes. I think it's because of my earlier point: real humans aren't wholesome. In a way, wholesome content serves the same purpose as fantasy; if readers can just suspend their disbelief, they get to enter a new world. Only, in this case, the world looks a lot like ours; it's just that everybody is a lot more patient, cheerful, and g-rated.



But then there's still the question, why Amish romance? Couldn't people just flock to non-cartoonish, non-cheesy cozy romance (and please if anyone knows where to find THAT drop it in the comments) and stick to reading that?



I think it's because the characters being Amish makes it all the easier to suspend one's disbelief. When we see characters who live in NYC in the year 2020 saying things like "Gee whiz" or carrying on silly banter about quilting or cinnamon cake recipes, we're bound to be like....'kay? This is...not how human beings in their 20s behave. Now, if the characters are Amish, can we really say that? I'll be the first to admit it: I've never met an Amish person. Do they really spend their days laughing over who bakes the finest cinnamon cake? I have a feeling they probably don't. I have a feeling they are just as human as any of us, and probably struggle with very un-wholesome problems, like marital troubles, infidelity, jealously, heck even violence. Humans are human everywhere and life isn't a Hallmark movie. But while, consciously, I know this, suspending my disbelief is incredibly easy, because I have no way of knowing for sure how Amish people act. Maybe being Amish is just super chill and everybody is sweet and corny all the time.



The distance most modern readers have from the Amish is the reason, I think, for the success of the Amish romance subgenre. Amish people behaving so wholesomely doesn't strike us as off, and falling into the coziness of the story is easy.



And wow! This was a cozy story. I loved reading it so much. It was one of those books that's like a warm blanket around you. You just want to snuggle into it and stay forever.



The characters were also fairly fleshed out for such a light read. I loved Rebekah and her journey to figure out who she is. She struggles with her identity and wonders if she truly belongs in the Amish community. Her quilt is a motif throughout the work, and I loved how the quilt, and the progress she made on it, was so symbolic of her personal growth. You could see her character arc play out physically as the quilt took shape.



Then there was the romance! Oh! I love a good friends to lovers story. Also one aspect of this book that I appreciated is that sexual arousal is actually referenced. After a kiss, Rebekah internally scolds herself for how she is feeling towards Joseph and reminds herself that she should only ever feel that way for her husband. I liked that the book was realistic in that way. There was still a wholesome Christian message, but the main character is human, and hey, when you're dating someone (Amish or not) feelings like that are bound to pop up. It was refreshing to see such realism in such a wholesome work.



Overall, I give this book 4 stars!



It was so fun to read, so cute and sweet, and I'm so glad this was my introduction to the Amish romance subgenre.



This is the wholesome and cute content I've been craving in my life
… (mais)

Rebekah's Dress is heartwarming. First, I did not get through the first book just to have Rebekah and Joseph's happy ending interrupted. I was a little torn - on the one hand I would feel horrible if something did happen to Katie (but really can't she find someone else, Joseph's heart is obviously spoken for)! On the other hand, if this is a stunt to try and sway Joseph then really it would be her own fault...but I digress. This was a beautiful continuation of Rebekah's story, and while I won't ruin it, let's just say you'll quickly lose yourself turning the pages of this sweet romance.… (mais)