The Amish Christmas Kitchen – Bittersweet
It is always great to get a book that you know, just from the title, will be full of three things: Amish stories, Christmas spirit, and food! On those main points, this collection of novellas does not fail. However, as I dug deeper, I found that not all of the novellas lived up to their full potential.
Kelly Long’s Baking Love on Ice Mountain takes readers back to famed Ice Mountain (for those readers that have been shy about previous books in this series: No worries here.) Long gives readers an endearing story of young widowed Clara Kauffman, who has isolated herself in her little cabin on the mountain – well, she does have a rather precocious little goat, but I digress. Seth Loftuz is not just a friend of Clara’s – he was her husband’s best friend and he promised to marry Clara before his friend died. Clara knows nothing of this arrangement and she’s certainly not going to just marry someone (even when two years have passed.) With the help of a loving community, a cookie bake-off stirs the embers of their friendship.
In Jennifer Beckstrand’s The Christmas Bakery on Huckleberry Hill, readers are once again joined with joyful, cook-wannabe, knitting maniac Anna Helmuth and her gadget-loving, tastebud-less, ever-faithful husband Felty. Anna is back to her matchmaking, and her newest target is her grandson, toothpick extraordinaire Titus. She plans to match him up with the shy, apprehensive (but one amazing baker) Katie Rose, who will be staying with the Helmuths for the next month…as she gets to know her soon-to-be fiancé, Adam Wengerd! Adam is…persnickety. With the help of a goat or two (yes, you read that correctly!), Anna’s hard work just may pay off.
In Lisa Jones Baker’s The Special Christmas Cookie, readers are taken to Arthur, Illinois, where teacher Emma is helping sickly little Amos Troyer, who is learning from home as he awaits a trip to the Mayo Clinic for heart surgery. Emma organizes a fundraiser (adding her own infamous star cookies) to help offset the tremendous amount needed for the surgery. But Amos’s older brother, Jonathan, is not keen to have others help out when he is the head of their family. What will become of Amos? The fundraiser? The friendship between Emma and Jonathan?
I was given The Amish Christmas Kitchen in exchange for my honest review. I was really looking forward to this book, and both Long and Beckstrand delivered. Their characters were well thought-out, engaging, and witty. I found myself wanting to read the next chapter of their characters’ lives. That being said, Baker’s story really fell flat. It was long and laborious, lacking any real depth. Additionally, some phrases and words were so overused that it became bothersome. It is unfortunate that The Amish Christmas Kitchen ended with Baker’s novella, as it left a bitter taste on the book as a whole.
Susan Ferrell and her husband make their home in the Atlanta Metro area. Although Susan struggles with chronic migraine headaches, she stays very busy as a stay-at-home mom to one very precocious little girl. While catching her breath, she feeds her Amishaholic tendencies by reading vast amounts of Amish literature!