Showing results by author "Linda Byler" in All Categories

For years, Edna Miller has found herself drawn to Emery Hoschtettler with an attraction she can explain no better than she can put a stop to it. Other suitors come and go, but none make her feel the way she feels around Emery - that incredible floating feeling, as if she was walking on air, mixed with a painful desperation to be ever nearer to him. Despite the fact that Emery seldom seems to pay her much attention, she decides it would be unfair to marry anyone else when her heart longs only for him. He hasn’t seriously dated anyone else either.

As May settles into family life, she has so much to be grateful for. Yes, there are plenty of challenges as she continues to heal from the demons of her past, but her loving husband and sweet children are the greatest earthly gift she could ask for. And having Oba in their home is almost more precious than she could have imagined . . . at least, if it weren't for his ongoing anger and hardness of heart. May's children are steadily growing older, and eventually they begin to face relationship struggles of their own. Can May help them navigate the turbulent waters of young love?

With her copper red hair and inquisitive personality, Mary is an anomaly in her Amish community in western New York. She tries to join in the fun with the other youth as they gather for hymn singings and games, but she finds it all rather dull. None of the young men are interested in her and she's even less interested in them. With each passing year, she feels more and more out of place and stifled by life as a misfit in a rural Amish community.

As a young man growing up in an Amish family, Amos struggles to fit in. Slow in school, overweight, and afflicted with terrible acne, he feels he's a constant disappointment to his mother, sisters, teachers, and employers. Convinced that he will never be good enough for them, he leaves home and accepts a job as a live-in groundskeeper for an “English” (non-Amish) couple. Gradually, he moves toward a healthier, more confident version of himself. But he can't leave behind the fact that living as an English person is the greatest disappointment to his family yet.

Lydia Beiler loves teaching school in her Amish community in Wisconsin. As a single woman in her fifties, the scent of chalk dust and the feel of a red Bic pen between her fingers is her calling, and she lives it to the full extent. But teaching isn't without its struggles—namely Jesse Stoltzfus, a sixth grade boy who pushes Lydia's patience to the limits. It doesn't matter how many times she makes him stay in from recess; he seems determined to argue everything and distract the other students with his toe tapping and incessant teasing.

Susan has been in Wyoming long enough to feel at home, but instead she finds herself still struggling to adapt to the dusty landscape, the different customs, and life so far from family. She knows she should be appreciating the big, beautiful log home that Isaac built, but sometimes even that feels like a burden—so much of it to clean, and Isaac always traipsing in with his muddy boots and clothes smelling of diesel. But those are just the surface problems.