Arms of Love

Arms Of Love by Kelly Long
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a work of romance with many facets - it's Christian fiction, Amish fiction, and it's also historical fiction - the Patriots and the British are at war and danger is aplenty. The Amish are belittled by the Patriots for not joining their ranks and fighting for their home and country.

The story opens in William Penn's Woods in the late 1700s, Adam Wyse, a young Amish man is in love with his beautiful neighbor, Lena Yoder. Alas, before Lena's mother dies in childbirth with her youngest child, she requires a promise from Adam that he will set himself free from his harsh, ungiving father before taking Lena as his wife. Lena, feeling cast off and not knowing Adam's promise, turns to his older brother, Issac, who is studying to be a bishop and also his father's favorite son.

Adam has horrible flashbacks to an unnamed fearful time when he was young. His flashbacks compel him to leave the Amish fold and enlist - to get away from his father and make a life of his own, therefore fulfilling the promise to Lena's mother.

Not just for readers of Amish literature (I do not often read Amish fiction but it is extremely popular), I enjoyed getting to know the characters, seeing their flaws and strengths, and watching their faith be tested and grow from inner and outer turmoil. I also liked Adam's British acquaintance, a family man named Major Dale Ellis, who became a good, kind friend to Adam, despite their many differences. At the end of the book Kelly Long has not only included Reading Club questions but also a four-week bible study.


Joyce Lamb from USA TODAY writes:
Kelly Long knows a thing or two about the Amish. She grew up in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, where the Amish roadside vegetable stands made a big impression on her as a child. She says that her new release, Arms of Love, "traces the Amish to their first roots in America" and also deals with post-traumatic stress disorder. .... what draws her to the Amish culture and how the Amish struggle with the same problems that everyone else does.

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