The Harvest of Grace
Read The Harvest of Grace Online
Authors: Cindy Woodsmall
Praise for
Cindy Woodsmall
“This third entry in the Ada’s House series is sure to please fans of the first two novels. Fans of Amy Clipston and Marta Perry will enjoy its engaging characters and homespun feel.”
—
Library Journal
“Oh, blessed insomnia! Cindy Woodsmall is a master at stealing your heart and your sleep with powerful love stories as pure and haunting as the Amish community in which they are set. With crisp prose, flesh-and-blood characters who live and breathe on the page, and a spiritual heritage that nourishes the soul,
The Harvest of Grace
is a rich bounty of unforgettable reading that is just ‘plain’ perfect.”
—J
ULIE
L
ESSMAN
, award-winning author of The Daughters of Boston and Winds of Change series
“You don’t have to be a fan of Amish stories to love a Cindy Woodsmall book.
The Harvest of Grace
’s heroine, Sylvia, won me over from the first page, and I cheered her through the story. Woodsmall writes a beautiful page-turner with heart-gripping twists. A worthy read.”
—R
ACHEL
H
AUCK
, award-winning author of
Dining with Joy
“A treasure chest, for sure … The wisdom in these stories is time-tested and true—plain and simple.”
—K
AREN
K
INGSBURY
,
New York Times
best-selling author of
Unlocked
and
Shades of Blue
“[Cindy Woodsmall] paints a vivid backdrop of Amish and Mennonite cultures with fascinating detail and memorable clarity.”
—T
AMERA
A
LEXANDER
, best-selling author of
Rekindled
“Cindy Woodsmall writes real—real people, real conflicts, real emotions. When you open her book, you enter her world and live the story with the characters.”
—K
IM
V
OGEL
S
AWYER
, author of
Where Willows Grow
and
Waiting for Summer’s Return
T
HE
H
ARVEST OF
G
RACE
P
UBLISHED BY
W
ATER
B
ROOK
P
RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Cindy Woodsmall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
W
ATER
B
ROOK
and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woodsmall, Cindy.
The harvest of grace : a novel / Cindy Woodsmall. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-72962-0
1. Amish—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.O678H37 2011
813′.6—dc22
2011016848
v3.1
Books by Cindy Woodsmall
A
DA’S
H
OUSE SERIES
The Hope of Refuge
The Bridge of Peace
The Harvest of Grace
The Sound of Sleigh Bells
The Christmas Singing
(coming in October)
S
ISTERS OF THE
Q
UILT SERIES
When the Heart Cries
When the Morning Comes
When the Soul Mends
N
ONFICTION
Plain Wisdom
To Linda Wertz
,
a dear woman who values God’s creatures
and labors to exhaustion to make a difference
.
You touch lives without realizing it
.
You offer a different lens to view life through
to all who are blessed to come in contact with you
.
And to your husband, Rick
,
who believes in you as much as he believes in the One who created you
.
And to every farmer
,
who understands all too well
the mountain of troubles that you face
,
the lack of support from those who need you most
,
and the constant effort you put into finding solutions
.
Contents
Ada’s House Series: Main Characters in The Harvest of Grace
The Ada’s House Novels
The story so far …
In
The Hope of Refuge
, Cara Atwater Moore is a waitress in New York City. Cara’s mother died when Cara was only eight, and she was abandoned by her alcoholic father. Now, at twenty-eight, she is being stalked by a man she knows from growing up in foster care. She escapes New York with her seven-year-old daughter, Lori, whose father died when Lori was just a toddler. Following a diary Cara’s mother left her and sketchy memories from a childhood visit to her mother’s relatives in Amish country, Cara arrives in Dry Lake, Pennsylvania. Exhausted and fearful of being followed, she and Lori seek shelter in a barn. She is discovered by Ephraim Mast, a thirty-two-year-old, single Amish man who works as a cabinetmaker. To spare Cara from being separated from her daughter by social services, Ephraim takes them in and helps them, even though that creates serious problems for him with the Amish church leaders and community members.
Ephraim’s sister, Deborah, is engaged to Mahlon, the only child of Ada Stoltzfus, a forty-three-year-old widow. Mahlon disappears without explanation, leaving his mother and Deborah on their own. Ada takes both Deborah and Cara under her wing, inviting them to live with her in Hope Crossing. After Cara chooses to join the Old Order Amish church, Ephraim and she realize they want to build a life together.
In
The Bridge of Peace
, Lena Kauffman is a twenty-three-year-old Amish schoolteacher in Dry Lake who is sometimes mocked for having a birthmark that covers part of her face and neck. Her longtime friend and confidant, Grey Graber, is struggling in his relationship with his wife, Elsie. Because they’ve conceived two children, one who is missing part of an arm and one who was stillborn because of birth defects, Elsie avoids Grey out of fear that they can’t have healthy children. Once Grey understands why she’s shut him out, he insists they undergo medical tests to determine if there is a genetic reason they should not have more children. They do so, but before the results are revealed, Elsie dies on her parents’ farm when a bull mauls her. Grey chooses to burn the envelope containing the test results without looking at them. His relationship with his longtime friend Lena develops, and they fall in love. Lena is a close friend of Deborah Mast and Cara Moore, and she frequently visits them at Ada’s House, which has become an Amish tourist attraction because of their home-baked goods and their seasonal activities for families.
For a list of main characters in
The Harvest of Grace
,
see
this page
.
