Autumn Grace (A Season Novel, Band 2) - Softcover

Ellis, Marianne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593334892 ISBN 13: 9780593334898

Verlag: Berkley, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

As summer turns to autumn one woman begins an unexpected journey of love, compassion, and discovery in the second Amish Seasons novel.

The oldest of seven daughters, Ruth Schrock has grown up believing that her uncompromising father has never really approved of her independent nature. Though devoted to her community and her faith, she’s always found it difficult to follow the straight and narrow path of a deacon’s daughter. When Ruth is asked to teach in a nearby community, she jumps at the opportunity—feeling that God has given her a chance at a life of meaning.

Ruth never could have guessed that her new path would lead to Levi Yoder. Handsome Levi is a shy and quiet man. He lives alone and seems most comfortable spending time with the injured animals he rescues and cares for. Ruth and her all-embracing love of life confuse yet captivate Levi. With her school across the road from his farm, the attraction grows—but so do the conflicts. Can these two opposites find a path they can walk together into the future?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Marianne Ellis, author of Summer Promise, is the pseudonym for two accomplished writers: JoAnn Brown and Cameron Dokey.

Jo Ann Brown has written over ninety books in the romance genre. She currently writes in The Patchwork Mysteries series for Guideposts and Thorndike, and she wrote the novelization for Thomas Kinkade’s The Christmas Cottage for Berkley.  Her interest in the Amish goes back many years when she and her family lived in Pennsylvania not far from Lancaster County.

Cameron Dokey began her writing career in 1994. Since that time she has more than thirty works of fiction to her credit including romances for readers of all ages. Her young adult works have appeared regularly on the ALA most recommended lists. Brown and Dokey also collaborated on the Candace Steele paranormal romance series for Ballantine Books.


 

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One

Ruth Schrock straightened up and brushed rich, black earth from her apron. She loved working in her family's vegetable garden, but summer had extended its heat and humidity into September. The sun beat down on her, and only her bare toes, curled into the earth, were cool. She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her forehead and her nape beneath her kapp. She was looking forward to a soak in the tub tonight. That would help her sleep so she could finish harvesting tomorrow.

She picked green beans and placed them in the bucket with a late squash and the final tomatoes. Everything else, except for the pumpkins, was already canned. The pumpkins still needed a week or two before being cut from their wandering vines. Then, she would slice, peel, cook, and mash them. To some she would add nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon, for desserts and sweet sauces. The rest would be canned without spice. Daed liked egg noodles, chicken, and stewed pumpkin after he finished the milking on a cold winter's night.

Ruth did most of the cooking now, because Mamm was going to have another boppli in early December. Ruth was the oldest of seven daughters, so her mamm was praying as hard for a boy as Daed was. All Ruth prayed for was that the boppli be healthy. It was her mother's tenth pregnancy, including a miscarriage and a stillborn son.

Ruth dropped the last beans in the bucket and glanced at the old, white farmhouse with porches on each side. Gut! Mamm wasn't in sight. Maybe she was resting, as the midwife had ordered. The barn behind the house was the same white, and the wide door to the upper story gaped open. Daed had finished chopping corn for the day, and the mules were in the pasture. By now, he would be starting evening chores.

The grass tickled her feet as she crossed the yard. One of her younger sisters would need to mow tomorrow. She couldn't remember if it was Maisie's or Ella's turn.

Climbing the steps to the mud porch set between the kitchen and the vacant dawdi-haus, she opened the screened kitchen door. She wasn't surprised to see Mamm by the table, mixing something in a bowl she had propped against her large stomach. A smudge of flour accented her turned-up nose that was so much like Ruth's. Her eyes were brown, and her light-brown hair glittered with gray. She wasn't very tall, unlike Ruth who towered over her. Now that Mamm was so round, she looked even shorter.

"Mamm, I thought you were going to sit," Ruth chided her gently.

"I tried, but I promised your sisters some ginger molasses cookies." Mamm smiled, but nothing could erase the fatigue on her face. "It's not in my nature to sit and do nothing all afternoon."

"I know." Ruth didn't bother to remind Mamm there were things she could do: mending, working on the boppli's quilt, or making new clothes for the younger girls. But Mamm wasn't one for sitting. Neither was Ruth, which was why she loved working in the garden, even on a hot day. "Let me make supper tonight."

"Ach, that will be gut, Ruth."

"I'm going to wash up at the pump. I think I brought half the dirt from the garden with me."

Mamm laughed then put her hand to her stomach. "That was a big kick." She winced. "A very big one."

"Are you all right?" If her mamm went into labor early, the boppli might die. "Do I need to call the midwife?"

"No. I'm fine." She waved toward the door. "You worry too much. Go and wash up. Make sure Vera and Mattie wash, too. I saw them playing in the mud by the pump earlier."

Ruth set the bucket of vegetables in the sink, reminding Mamm to leave the cleaning to her. She planned the evening meal while going back outside to find her youngest sisters. Mamm had baked bread that morning, and Ruth would make a stew with leftover chicken. That should be enough for the nine of them, with Mamm's delicious cookies and pie for dessert.

If only Ruth could be as gut a cook as Mamm . . . She tried, but she found cooking traditional recipes boring. When she added a new ingredient and the meal came out tasting strange, Mamm laughed. "That's our Ruth. Always needing to do something different."

Daed wasn't so forgiving, especially when he didn't like Ruth's experiments. He was a stickler for tradition. Maybe that's why God had picked him to serve as the district's deacon, even though Mamm joked with her daughters that Daed needed an excuse to escape so many females. The mules were female, the cows were female, the hens were female, most of the barn cats were female, and he had seven daughters.

Now Ruth needed to find the two youngest. Vera was six and Mattie just four. It was gut that Mamm was having another boppli, because Mattie had been lonely since Vera began school two weeks ago. As far as Ruth could see, the two tried to compress a day's worth of mischief into the hours after school.

"Ruth! Ruth!" called Vera, breaking into Ruth's thoughts. "Komm and play with us."

Her youngest sisters rushed to her. Their bare legs were splattered with mud, and so were the hems of their burgundy dresses. Their brown hair, streaked with gold as light as Ruth's hair, stuck out in every direction from beneath their white, heart-shaped kapps.

"Play with two such dirty girls?" Ruth wrinkled her nose in feigned distaste. "Why would I want to do that?"

"We can't play snake with just two of us," Mattie explained.

"All right. One quick game, then we'll clean up and you can help me wash the vegetables for supper."

Taking each of her sisters by the hand, Ruth began to lead them across the yard in the snake game she had played when she was their age. They wound between the big maples and the towering oak, then around the trampoline, and back past the pump. Her sisters' giggles became excited squeals when Ruth spun them around, their bare feet flying behind them. She flipped Vera, then Mattie, over her arm, landing each on her feet. They bounced around her, begging her to do it again.

Laughing, she asked, "Do you know how silly you look?" She copied their motions, her long skirt flying up around her shins. Grabbing their hands again, she twirled them around until they were all giggling.

"Ruth Deborah Schrock!"

At Daed's sharp voice, Ruth froze along with her sisters. They recognized the tight, restrained tone he used when he was furious.

He strode toward them. His light-blond beard, which reached down over his blue shirt, jutted toward them. That was a sure sign he was angry.

Not them, Ruth corrected herself when he told her younger sisters to go in the house. He's angry at me.

She quickly lowered her eyes. Daed didn't like to be reminded that she was tall-an inch taller than he was, in fact. He blamed her height for her still-unmarried state at the age of twenty-two.

He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the house. Neither of them spoke as they walked into the kitchen. Only Mamm was there, putting a tray of cookies into the oven.

Mamm glanced at them, then went to the sink, where she poured water into a bowl and began washing the beans Ruth had brought in. Mamm didn't interfere when Daed chastised them. It was the deacon's job to reprimand members of the district when they hadn't followed the Ordnung. He expected no less from his daughters than from the rest of the community. Ruth girded herself for what her father would say.

Daed took off his straw hat and hung it on the peg by the door, where eight everyday bonnets waited. Crossing to where Ruth stood, he demanded, "What if someone had seen you dancing like that?"

"Daed, we were shielded from the road." She looked into his eyes, that were the same deep...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593334892
• ISBN 13: 9780593334898
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@phaidon.com; gpsr@phaidon.com; ; Zähringerstraße 24; Berlin; 10707; Deutschland