Secrets and Sisters

I have participated in Secret Santa and secret sister type gift exchanges. They were lots of fun and yielded so many blessings--for me as the giver as well as the receiver.

Jessica and Liz have taken on a ministry started by Jessica's Aunt Rose, one that requires absolute secrecy so that the recipient is totally surprised. Lydia is their first project. She lost her husband, Henry, in the same fire that took Jessica's Aunt Rose. Liz and Jessica bought Henry's shirts at an auction of all his belongings, took them home and made a quilt from them. In the dead of night, they snuck the quilt back to Lydia's.

Lydia went into town to run a few errands and to look for a job. She stops in Rose's Knit One, Quilt Too Cottage during a rush and ends up helping Jessica with the rush. Jessica offers Lydia a job and now the sisters are a complete three-some.

The Sisters of Sugarcreek is a sweet story with just a touch of romance thrown in for good measure. Cathy Liggett has done a masterful job of creating this story and weaving some Amish customs and lore into the plot. That Lydia is the only Amish person among the sisters matters not to Jessica and Liz, she is accepted as she is and encircled into their friendship. The plot has more to do with friendship than romance and that made it a breath of fresh air for me. While Lydia is an accomplished Amish cook and Liz knows quite a bit about cooking, cooking isn't the mainstay of this book, knitting and quilting are.

This is a five star book, with two thumbs up, and a recipe for Amish peanut butter spread.

My thanks to Tyndale House for allowing me to read and review this book.