The Keeper, Blog Tour and Facebook Party info And Prizes

Imagine wondering if your father is going to live from day to day. You have already lost your mother and as the eldest in the family, it has fallen to you to make sure that things keep running. Your next oldest sister is in charge of the cooking, your brother is mentally disabled. Add on a crazy uncle, a fiancé with cold feet and the annual visit from the Bee Man and you have The Keeper by Suzanne Woods Fisher.

Spring has sprung at Windmill Farm. The fruit trees in the orchard are getting ready to bloom, the first of the produce is coming in from the garden and Julia Lapp is happily planning her wedding to Paul Fisher. Until the day that Paul comes to her and tells her he wants to postpone the wedding….again. Julia is left wondering what is going on and decides to blame the Bee Man as he has just shown up for his annual visit with his famous brown bees. Last year when he came to town he talked several of the young men of the community into postponing or canceling wedding plans then, along with Paul for the first time. This time, he’s done the same thing.

While Julia is left to pick up the pieces of her relationship with Paul again, she has to deal with her father’s coming passing. Amos knows his time is short, his heart is failing quickly. There is the option of a heart transplant, but he refuses to even consider it. The family has tried and tried to get him to consent to be placed on the waiting list to no avail.

Life is falling apart on so many fronts for poor Julia. How will she cope? Just as she is resigning herself to what all she is to do and is responsible for, her brother decides that he is in love with a neighbor of a different Amish sect. This may have been ok, except for the fact that Menno is 17 and has the mind of a six year old.

Then the day arrives when Uncle Hank announces he has word from an Amishwoman in Ohio who wants to come out and take care of the family. Fern arrives and is quite the force to be reckoned with…With her militaristic ways and stringent guidelines, how will anyone cope? Will Julia find a way to convince Paul to go ahead and keep their wedding date? How long will Amos survive? And will Menno find a life for himself despite his disability?

This book started out very well. The characters were believable for the most part. And I found myself being dragged into the story. However, about part way through I started to kind of  feel bulldozed. Things got a bit beyond my ability to see past the realm of probability. I absolutely did not like how the issue of Amos’ heart transplant and Menno’s romantic feelings were taken care. I felt cheated with the resolution and topics that were brought up were dealt with in a way that there was no way to come to grips with the issue or to finish truly hashing it out.

It was a nice little love story and a lovely break from reality for me to read.

About Suzanne:
Her interest in the Amish began with her grandfather, W.D. Benedict, who was raised Plain. She has many, many Plain relatives living in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and travels back to Pennsylvania, as well as to Ohio, a couple of times each year for research.

Suzanne has a great admiration for the Plain people and believes they provide wonderful examples to the world. In both her fiction and non-fiction books, she has an underlying theme: You don’t have to “go Amish” to incorporate many of their principles–simplicity, living with less, appreciating nature, forgiving others more readily– into your life.

When Suzanne isn’t writing or bragging to her friends about her first new grandbaby (!), she is raising puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind. To Suzanne’s way of thinking, you just can’t take life too seriously when a puppy is tearing through your house with someone’s underwear in its mouth.

Suzanne can be found on-line at: www.suzannewoodsfisher.com.

Suzanne is hosting a ”honey of a giveaway”during the blog tour for The Keeper! During 1/3-1/17 you can enter to win an iPad2 from Suzanne and connect with her on January 17th at The Keeper Facebook Party!

During the giveaway one Grand Prize winner will receive a Prize Pack valued at $600:

To visit the other blogs on the tour for The Keeper, go here.

And if you want to go buy your own copy, feel free to go here (I do not get any kickbacks for you clicking this link as I am not an Amazon Affiliate at the moment.)

I was given a copy of The Keeper by Suzanne Woods Fisher as a part of the Litfuse blogging group. All opinions are mine and mine alone and no other compensation was received.

Share on Facebook