ISBN: 9780736930093

Paperback, 285 pages

Harvest House Publishers

 A word from the author:I grew up close to the eastern Ohio Amish community of Geauga County, where my parents often took me to farmers’ markets and woodworking fairs. My husband and I now live within the largest population of Amish in the country–a four-county area in central Ohio. We love to take weekend getaways to purchase farm produce and other goodies, stay with Amish families in bed and breakfasts, attend country auctions and enjoy the simpler way of life.

This is my first series of novels set in the Amish community.

I would love to hear from readers of Christian novels. Please leave me a post at my blogsite.

As an Amish midwife, Abigail Graber loves bringing babies into the world. But when a difficult delivery takes a devastating turn, Abigail is faced with some hard choices. Despite her best efforts, the young mother dies—but the baby is saved.
When a heartless judge confines Abigail to the county jail for her mistakes, her sister Catherine comes to care for her children while Daniel works his fields. Catherine meets Daniel’s reclusive cousin, Isaiah, who’s deaf and thought to be simple minded by his community. She endeavors to teach him to communicate and discovers he possesses unexpected gifts and talents.

While Abigail searches for forgiveness, Catherine changes lives and, in return, finds love, something long elusive in her life. And Isaiah discovers God, who cares nothing about our handicaps or limitations in His sustaining love.

An inspirational tale of overcoming grief, maintaining faith, and finding hope in an ever-changing world.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Abigail's New Hope, go HERE.

MY REVIEW:

First I want to thank Mary Ellis the author for sending me this autographed copy of Abigal's New Hope for me to review.

Abigale Graber is an Amish wife and mother of two little ones.  She also is a midwife for some of the women, and when one night a new man that has just moved into the area came knocking on her door and needed her to come to his wife that was in labor.  No one else was available so she went and the young woman was already bleeding really bad, but Abigale delivered the healthy baby boy but the young woman died.  What else could she do she called 911 but by the time they got there it was too late.  The young father got his aunt to come and care for the baby.

Meanwhile word got out that Abigale was not a licenced midwife and that she was supposed to help someone else to deliver babies.  Two patrol cars came to her house and took her to jail where she stayed for a little while.  This was the first time an Amish woman had even been arrested for being a midwife but the state of Ohio saw it different.  She used her time to read her Bible and to Pray as she sit in jail.  Her father was a bishop and he had not come to see her, but her sister had come to care for the two children and to care for the house while she was in jail.  The bail was set to half a million dollars and the Amish people did not believe in putting up their farms for bail money as this had never come about before.  Will she have to server time in the woman's prison or will the judge and her lawyer get her off with a lesser sentence?

This is really a different kind of Amish book than most of the others, it deals with something that none of the other Amish writers have written about.  I think anyone that reads this book will really enjoy it.