Book review: Plain Peace (A Daughters of the Promise Novel) Paperback by Beth Wiseman

This book deals with the struggles of a young Amish woman, who struggles with combining her own personal desire of love and marriage with the demands and strict discipline enforced by her grandfather. I think we can all relate to this situation. Everyone went likely through a phase of teenage rebellion in which we felt that our parents just did not get it that we were growing up and especially the case of a dad who is overprotective of his little girl, even though she is in her 20s already.

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While Anna is certainly no rebellious teenager, the struggle she faces to live her own life is something that is reminiscent of teenagers longing for independence. Things really get problematic for Anna when Jacob Hostetler moved to Paradise and seems not to worry about the imposing figure of Anna's grandfather, who also happens to be the bishop. Jacob is starting to court Anna and Anna herself is longing for the love of Jacob, dreaming already of marrying him.

But how to show her grandfather that falling in love with Jacob and marrying him is not equal to betraying her faith? And how to convince  the bishop that his ways may seem outdated and also threaten the community itself?

But Anna is not the only one who feels that she has to keep a secret. It seems that her grandfather's strict rules slowly force almost everyone in the community to hide personal wishes, desires or actions. This cannot end well. But Anna manages to change her grandfather and get him to understand that adapting his rules to the current times is a small sacrifice in exchange for creating a healthy and open community of Amish.

This book contains a list of questions that are intended to reinforce the major themes of the book and help the reader in discussing the book. I found the questions to be helpful when read beforehand because they made me more aware of character developments as I was reading the book. As an added bonus, the book in an Appendix also has some really yummy recipes, including a wonderful raspberry chocolate cheesecake that I cannot wait to try out.

I liked this book despite its fairly overt Christian theme. One of the main themes of this book is forgiveness. The community is healthier because people trust each other to have errors in judgment forgiven and not having to keep secrets makes life so much easier for individuals.

Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of the book through booksneeze.com in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed in this post are solely my own and have not been influenced by booksneeze or any third party.