About a month ago, I downloaded a free “bonnet book” onto my Kindle. I enjoy Christian fiction, but I’ve never had a desire to read any of the books in the large and varied Amish subsection out there. However, the free book that I read wasn’t all that bad… I actually enjoyed it! So, when I got the opportunity to read “When the Soul Mends,” by Cindy Woodsmall, I was excited to do so.

This is the third book in Woodsmall’s Sisters of the Quilt series, and while I could tell I had missed out on a significant amount of backstory, I was quickly caught up on plotlines and characters without being bogged down by too much information. Hannah Lawson has been living in mainstream America for the past two years, after being shunned from her Amish community for a pregnancy that was the result of a violent rape. Hannah lost her family, her true love, and her identity when she left Owl’s Perch, but over time, she’s taken steps to make a new life for herself. The book begins with a desperate call from Hannah’s sister, and when Hannah makes the trip back to Owl’s Perch for the first time in years, she’s forced to confront the issues she left behind and reconcile who she was with who she is now.

I really, really enjoyed the story. While some parts were predictable and the plot moved slowly, the characters and their situations were real enough that I was still guessing how many of them would choose to act and live throughout the course of the book. The characters were so different from one another that following their stories was great entertainment. I had trouble putting the book down and will definitely be going back and reading the first two books in the series.

Many thanks to Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book to review. All opinions expressed are mine entirely.