Mountains of Mercy

The Amish group living in Montana is facing the terrors of a wildfire, and several of the communities are evacuating, and finding refuge where they can.  The fire is the over-arcing premise for several minor stories that occur within the book.

Mercy Yoder is the school teacher for her community and dearly loves her scholars.  Some of her friends gather up the desks and the books and take them to the garage where she is staying so that she can still hold school for the children who can still come to school.  She's very content with where she is and isn't looking for marriage or a suitor.  She has turned down a proposal from Caleb because he hides his feelings.  She meets an Englisch smoke jumper with a broken leg and befriends him, although her family disapproves.

Mercy has an Englisch friend who is in love with the deputy sheriff, but she has some issues to work out before he will give her a second look. The most important issue she has to work out is her relationship with God.

This book confused me at first because there was an overwhelming number of characters to get to know right off the bat.  The longer I read, the better it became, but it took getting pretty far into the book.  There weren't any lags in the plot, and the settings are just a bit too real for someone who lives in the Northwest and lives in the risk of wildfires coming too close.  Kelly Irvin is one of my favorite Amish authors and will continue to rank up there, but this particular book is not up to par.  Still a four star read.

My thanks to Zondervan and NetGalley.com for providing the galley I read.  The opinions expressed here are my own.