Review of: Home to Stay
In the New Order Amish community of Pleasant Valley, Max Lambright has rebuilt his home and his life after losing his entire family as a child to a series of tragedies [p. 10]. Now an adult and successful building contractor, he has many friends in the community but no family of his own [p. 12]. When he meets Willa Richards, the new live-in helper for Max’s business partner Dan and his wife Anki, Max is struck by Willa’s assertiveness as an Englischer from out of town, yet her respect for the Amish way of life [p. 3]. Most of all, he notices the love Willa has for her baby daughter and the lengths she has gone to in order to escape from a life of drugs and crime [p. 33 ff]. Willa, as a newcomer to the community, is determined to turn her life around to provide for her child [p. 16 ff]. She genuinely cares for her employer and his wife, Anki, and begins to feel like a part of their family [p. 51 ff]. Yet Willa harbors a secret fear that her abusive ex-boyfriend may one day come looking for her and little Frannie [p. 232]. As she and Max finds themselves forming the tender bonds of a new relationship, each must confront their fears leftover from the past to move forward in faith and love. Dan and Anki’s story, as a backdrop to the main characters, is a cautionary tale. Lough writes with compassion for her characters and readers will be drawn in accordingly. However, Willa’s tirelessness and the level of her ex-boyfriend’s depravity require some suspension of disbelief to buy into this inspirational romance.
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