Showing results by narrator "Rachel Botchan" in All Categories

When Pheodora's husband is unexpectedly thrown into debtors' prison, she is shocked to learn that a loan from her generous sister would jeopardize her brother-in-law's religious aspirations. Forced to pin her hopes on two she-goats whose spotless white offspring could be sold for an upcoming Yom Kippur sacrifice, Pheodora must struggle to keep the animals - and her family - alive.

Aya, daughter of Zebulun of Tarsus, does not want a traditional life. After years of being overshadowed by her brilliant brother Sha’ul, she wants a chance to use her own gifts beyond being a wife and mother. When her father insists that she marry a Torah student, she reluctantly agrees.

Disciple Matthew, a former tax collector, is invited to work with Peter, James, and John in Jerusalem. He dreams of preaching and performing miracles like his fellow apostles, but he finds his dreams postponed because of a request from Yeshua's mother. Well aware of the passing years, Mary asks Matthew to help her record the stories of Yeshua while the eyewitnesses are still alive. Reluctantly, he agrees, though the longer he and Mary work together, the more difficult their task becomes.

Unrest is stirring in Nellie's Pennsylvania Amish community. Some of the farmers are even demanding forbidden modern conveniences, such as tractors. Nellie, meanwhile, is distraught over the impediments set against her courtship to handsome Caleb Yoder.

With a college diploma safely in hand, 20-year-old Thomas Ollenburger is torn between his Mennonite roots on the Kansas prairie and his affluent life in Boston society - and by romantic entanglements in each world. And now even Heaven seems deaf to questions about his choices of vocation, wife, and home.

In Beverly Lewis' enthralling sequel to her New York Times best-selling novel The Secret, two young ladies - one Amish, the other English - join forces to solve the mystery of a mother gone missing and a disease gone wild. Will these hurting souls find what they seek - or will they discover much more?"

The Stoltzfus family faces serious problems, both in the church and at home. Everyone in the community expects minister David Stoltzfus to fix things - fast. But David doesn't work fast. He prefers to wait for God to work in individual hearts. However, even he is left wondering if the solution to their most pressing problem might be a Quieting. When David's mother arrives uninvited, more upheaval is in store. She has matchmaking plans for everyone in the family, including David and her eligible granddaughters - and especially for David's niece, Abigail.

Back and broke in Stoney Ridge, Jimmy Fisher has coasted as long as he could through life on charm, good looks, and deep-set dimples. They always worked just fine for him - until they didn't. His smile has no effect on the violet-eyed beauty he met at the Bent N' Dent, the one with that stunning horse. She's offered him a job, but nothing else. The last thing Sylvie Schrock King needs around Rising Star Farm is a grown boy working for her, especially her neighbor Edith's son. The woman holds a serious grudge against Sylvie and her son....

When the new provincial governor arrives in Corinth, the esteemed Chief Magistrate Narkis Ligus, father to Mariana and Prima, is delighted. He sees a golden opportunity to propel himself to greater power and fortune by uniting his and the governor’s households through the marriage of one of his beautiful unwed daughters to the governor’s firstborn son.

Lena Rose Schwartz hadn't planned to leave her Old Order community in Centerville, Michigan. But then, she could not have foreseen the accident that made her and her siblings orphans. After her parents' funeral, her younger brothers and sisters are farmed out to various nearby relatives. But when the deacon in charge of the arrangements tells her there aren't places enough for everyone, she agrees to go live with her father's second cousin and his family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Beside the fact that Lena has never been more than a few miles from home, she's never met the family she will now be living with. But worse than that is the thought of being separated from her siblings. How will they manage without her to care for them - especially eight-year-old Chris?

In 1737, Anna Konig and her fellow church members stagger off a small wooden ship after 10 weeks at sea, eager to start a new life in the vibrant but raw Pennsylvania frontier. On the docks of Port Philadelphia waits bishop Jacob Bauer, founder of the settlement and father to ship carpenter Bairn. It's a time of new beginnings for the reunited Bauer family, and for Anna and Bairn's shipboard romance to blossom. But this perfect moment cannot last.

Luke Schrock is a new and improved man after a stint in rehab, though everyone in Stoney Ridge only remembers the old Luke. They might have forgiven him, but nobody trusts him. Amos and Fern Lapp allow Luke to live at Windmill Farm under two conditions. First, Luke must make a sincere apology to each person he's hurt - a four-page, single-spaced list. Second, he must ask each victim of mischief to describe the damage he caused.

When Melissa Gould’s husband, Joel, was unexpectedly hospitalized, she could not imagine how her life was about to change. Overwhelmed with uncertainty as Joel’s condition tragically worsened, she offered him the only thing she could: her love and devotion. Her dedication didn’t end with his death. Melissa soon realized that her and Joel’s love lived on. Melissa found she didn’t fit the typical mold of widowhood or meet the expectations of mourning. She didn’t look like a widow or act like a widow, but she felt like one. Melissa was widowish.

Meg Pero has been assisting her photographer father since she was big enough to carry his equipment, so when he dies she is determined to take over his profession - starting with fulfilling the contract he signed to serve on an Army survey of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 1871. What she doesn't realize is that the leader of the expedition is none other than the man she once refused to marry. Captain Ben Coleridge would like nothing more than to leave without the woman who broke his heart, but he refuses to wait even one more day to get started.

Increasingly wary of her father's genetic research, Rachel Kramer has determined that this trip with him will be her last. A letter from her friend changes everything. Married to SS officer Gerhardt Schlick, Kristine fears her husband views their daughter, Amelie, deaf since birth, as a blight on his Aryan bloodline. Rachel fears her father's files may hold answers about Hitler's plans for others like Amelie. Rachel turns to journalist Jason Young, who connects her to the resistance....

When Anna Konig first meets Bairn, the Scottish ship carpenter of the Charming Nancy, their encounter is anything but pleasant. Anna is on the ship only to ensure the safe arrival of her loved ones to the New World. Hardened by years of living at sea, Bairn resents toting these naive farmers - dubbed "Peculiars" by deckhands - across the ocean. As delays, storms, illness, and diminishing provisions afflict crew and passengers alike, Bairn finds himself drawn to Anna's serene nature.

On a golden August morning in 1939, sisters Antonina and Helena Dabrowska send their father off to defend Poland against the looming threat of German invasion. The next day, the first bombs fall on Warsaw, decimating their cherished city and shattering the world of their youth. When Antonina’s beloved Marek is forced behind ghetto walls along with the rest of Warsaw’s Jewish population, Antonina knows she cannot stand by and soon becomes a key figure in a daring network of women risking their lives to shelter Jewish children.

New to Stoney Ridge, schoolteacher Mollie has come to town for a fresh start. When Luke Schrock, new to his role as deacon, asks the church to take in foster girls from a group home, she's the first to raise her hand. The power of love, she believes, can pick up the dropped stitches in a child's heart and knit them back together. Mollie envisions sleepovers and pillow fights. What the 11-year-old twins bring to her home is anything but. Visits from the sheriff at midnight. And then the most humiliating moment of all: the girls accuse Mollie of drug addiction.

When Karlina Richter discovers that a new shepherd will be sent to her village, she fears she'll no longer be allowed to help her father with the sheep. She'll be relegated back to kitchen work, stuck inside all day. Her fears increase when the new shepherd shows little interest in the flock - or in divulging why he's suddenly been sent to East. Is he keeping secrets that will impact Karlina's family? Dovie Cates visits the Amana Colonies to learn more about the place where her mother grew up.

In 1911, Mabel MacGinnis is Europe’s strongest woman and has performed beside her father in the Manzo Brothers Circus her entire life. When he dies unexpectedly, she loses everything she’s ever known and sets off in the company of acrobat Jake Cunningham in hope of finding the mother she thought was dead. Isabella Moreau, America’s most feted aerialist, has given everything to the circus. But age and injury now threaten her security, and Isabella, stalked by old fears, makes a choice that risks everything.