Lydia Wyse, an editor for a publishing company in Seattle, comes home to West Kootenai, Montana, to attend her mother’s funeral and care for her father. Driving into the community, she is struck by the beauty and gets out of her car to photograph a lovely Amish farm. Gideon Hooley, working with Blue, a skittish stallion, in the field next to the house comes over to scold her for driving up fast, pulling over suddenly, and scaring his horse.
Lydia apologizes, although seething inside at his rudeness, then asks for directions to the Wyse farm. Answering Gideon in Pennsylvania Dutch, she reveals that she is the daughter of the Wyse’s come home to bury her “mem.” Gideon realizes that he’s been abrupt and inhospitable and returns the lens cap to her camera to the farm later that afternoon. He is interested in Lydia, but she is Englisch and verboten.
Lydia is drawn back to the Amish ways after her dad gives her Mem’s most prized possession, a Promise box of prayers and scriptures and letters to Lydia never sent. She wonders whether her call home is a true one or whether she’s just intrigued by her publisher’s view that Lydia should write a book about her Amish upbringing and way of life.
Lydia had left the Amish after her truth about her birth was told to her when she turned sixteen. Gideon had returned to West Kootenai to find the truth of when he had gotten lost in the woods as a child. Both have a journey to take – both have difficulties and misunderstandings to overcome.
Tricia Goyer’s The Promise Box is a lovely tale of redemption and love. You will enjoy reading and learning about the Amish culture and their lives with Lydia and Gideon. One of the books in the Seven Brides for Seven Bachelors series, The Promise Box is a great book to curl up and read with a cup of tea beside your chair. Four stars.
Zondervan Books gave me a copy of this book for my candid review.