Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
Returning to the home she fled in disgrace, will Hannah find healing for the wounds of the past?
After receiving a desperate and confusing call from her sister, Hannah Lapp reluctantly returns to the Old Order Amish community of her Pennsylvania childhood.
Having fled in disgrace more than two years earlier, she finally has settled into a satisfying role in the Englischer world. She also has found love and a new family with the wealthy Martin Palmer and the children she is helping him raise. But almost immediately after her arrival in Owl’s Perch, the disapproval of those who ostracized her, including her headstrong father, reopens old wounds.
As Hannah is thrown together with former fiancé Paul Waddell to work for her sister Sarah’s mental health, hidden truths surface about events during Hannah’s absence, and she faces an agonizing decision. Will she choose the Englischer world and the man who restored her hope, or will she heed the call to return to the Plain Life–and perhaps to her first love?
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
What a Wonderful Book
Customer Rating:
What a beautiful story...the emotional struggles and hurt that Hannah experienced...and a wonderful ending. Kept me wondering how this story would end. Cindy Woodsmall is a great inspiritional writter. Finished reading "When the Soul Mends" as the New Year 2009 arrived on Jan 1st.
Sad that the story is over, a great read.
Customer Rating:
The Sisters of the Quilt series about Hannah Lapp captivated me. I was unable to put these books down! Which unfortunately meant I finished them all too quickly. Thank you Cindy Woodsmall for writing such a wonderful story.
3rd in Sisters of the Quilt ends it just right
Customer Rating:
When the Soul Mends by Cindy Woodsmall is the third and final book in the Sisters of the Quilt series, but no worries, you don't need to have read the first two books to jump into this compelling novel. Hannah Lapp Lawson left the Amish faith two years ago when her community shunned her after a tragedy. She lost everything: her family, her fiance Paul, and her plans for the future, and had to rebuild a life for herself in Ohio. She's just a few months away from her nursing degree and she's almost engaged to a terrific Englischer, Martin, when she receives a confused phone call from her sister Sarah insisting that she return home. Hannah goes home to find that Sarah is falling apart mentally and to help her, she needs to face all of the ghosts from her past, and that may jeopardize her future with Martin. Woodsmall packs an amazing amount of drama into this book dealing with Hannah, her brother, and her best friend. There are a lot of Christian fiction books praising the Amish lifestyle, Woodsmall bravely addresses the insularity and troubles that may face those in that faith. Hannah has to face the disapproval of her father, along with being shunned by much of her community, and the reader can't help but applaud her courage and ability to stand up for herself. I loved every twist and turn of this book, and I appreciated the way Woodsmall refused to make anyone a caricature. Even the antagonists' motives were understandable and she didn't take the easy way out by making anyone truly irredeemable. I just couldn't put this book down!
Great read for those long winter nights
Customer Rating:
I don't normally start reading with the last book of a trilogy or in the middle of a series because I like to enter the characters' world at the beginning. I made an exception for When the Soul Mends by Cindy Woodsmall. This delightful book is the third in the Sisters of the Quilt series.
As the story unfolded I felt like sufficient background was supplied so that I was brought up to speed with the storyline. Yet, I didn't think the redundancy was so heavy that faithful readers would believe the author was wasting time reiterating material. As a newcomer, it took me a chapter or two to get comfortable in the book but I didn't feel handicapped by not having read the other two novels. In fact, I now am yearning to locate the two predecessors to this novel!
In When the Soul Mends, the reader is ensconced in the world of the Amish Mennonite and Old Order Amish. The Plain life is faithfully portrayed by Cindy Woodsmall as she concludes the story of Hannah Lapp, a young woman ostracized from the community in which she was raised.
Hannah returns at the behest of her sister and is forced to face the lifestyle and loved ones that she left behind nearly two years earlier. It is a time of discovery, on many levels, and she finds herself torn between the Englischer world and the Plain life.
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If you like novels with an Amish flavor then you will definitely enjoy this book. This was my first fictional journey into their world and I was immediately intrigued by this old-fashioned, alternate lifestyle that coexists within modern-day America. I appreciated the way in which the author resolved the conflict within this novel. I'm not sure how to properly phrase this, but I was pleasantly surprised that honor remained intact while allowing for growth in the characters. This fact alone is proof positive that salacious content is not necessary for a novel to land on the New York Times Bestseller list.
A Crossroads Story
Customer Rating:
When the Soul Mends by Cindy Woodsmall is the third book in the Sisters of the Quilt series.
Book Three opens with the protagonist, Hannah, returning to her Old Order Amish community in Pennsylvania. She had left two years before in a cloud of disgrace, misunderstanding and hurt. But Hannah is not the same woman who left. Although she has held onto many of her simple Amish ways, she has blossomed and thrived with the love and acceptance she has received in the "Englischer" world to which she fled. She has adapted to some of the modern ways and gained confidence, education, self-respect and a strong sense of who she is and how she should be treated.
When the Heart Mends is Hannah's crossroads story. Will she return to her Amish community or stay in the Englischer world? Will she marry the man with whom she has fallen in love in the Englischer world or can forgiveness and new understanding bring her back to her first love and former fiance when she lived in the Amish community?
This is a great story and opens a mostly unknown world to us "Englischers". It's a story of forgiveness, trusting God, and making a life for oneself that feels authentic and right. Hannah needs to figure out what works for her from the Amish world and what works from the modern world. She's such a likeable character and she's surprisingly strong; you will find yourself pulling for her every step of the way.
I will admit jumping into the story with the third book in the series is a little difficult, but the author kindly puts a summary of the characters and a snippet of what's happened at the beginning of the book so you can catch up. This "cheat sheet" is essential for the first several chapters. After that, you'll be so into the story, you won't even notice you missed the first two books. However, given the quality of When the Heart Mends, the other two books in the series, When the Heart Cries and When the Morning Comes are well worth taking the time to read as well.
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