Book Description
Miri Schrock never expected to inherit anything after months of caring for Old Tom Yoder, so upon his passing, she’s stunned to learn he’s left her everything. But Tom’s family is equally shocked, and Miri is not sure she can rightfully accept an inheritance that clearly belongs to Tom’s grandsons.
Moses Yoder thought he knew his grandfather, but his decision to leave the Lancaster County family farm to Miri has Moses questioning everything. Now he’s caught between his family’s demands that Miri surrender what’s rightfully theirs and his own growing romantic attraction toward her. As Moses and Miri are drawn together, they must navigate family tensions, yet discovering the truth behind the inheritance may change everything they thought they knew about love, family, and God’s plan for their future.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Through The Valley by Patricia Johns is a story involving two women who are not traditional Amish. Miri Schrock would rather be out in the field and tending to the cows and the farm rather than be inside cooking, cleaning, and sewing. Tabitha Schrock, years ago during her rumspringa, left the Amish community to become a veterinarian.
Tabitha ended up marrying an Englisher, Michael. Sadly, their marriage ended in divorce. Tabitha never really felt at home with Englishers so she decided to return to her Amish people. The one barrier she couldn’t break down was being a divorced woman. Despite her longtime friendship with Jonas and a growing love between them, she knew she would never be allowed to remarry if her ex-husband was still alive. She needed to move on with her life and she encouraged Jonas to move on, get married, and have a family.
But life takes an unexpected turn when Tabitha finds out her ex-husband has died. A lawyer reaches out to Tabitha to inform her Michael’s widow, Kelsie, wants to speak with her. After some consideration, Tabitha meets with her and the two discover the unkindness in Michael and his manipulative ways.
In another plot line, Tabitha’s cousin Miri Schrock has been helping Tom Yoder whose heath has continued to decline. She’s the one who has been tending to Tom’s daily needs as his grandsons, Moses and Benuel, are outside taking care of the farm. While Tom’s family knew that he was sick, his sudden passing was a surprise. At the reading of Tom’s will, it is announced that he left the farm to Miri.
The story weaves multiple plotlines and characters together. She does a fabulous job in having characters from previous novels in the story continue in this one. Readers will be sad to see this great series coming to an end.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?
Patricia Johns: I knew how the book, the whole series was going to end when I started writing it. This was something that I had planned from the very beginning. So, it was a well-planned series.
EC: There are two heroines in this story: are they alike or different?
PJ: Tabitha from early books is one heroine and Miri is the other. I think they’re similar. I mean, they’re cousins. They both don’t quite fit into the feminine mold that the Amish expect from them. I think they both struggle with a similar situation where they don’t quite fit in in the same way. But, of course, with Tabitha, she’s divorced, and is dealing with the other woman from her marriage, trying to connect with her and make peace. Miri has the community set against her because of this inheritance, which has gone terribly, terribly wrong in the community’s eyes.
EC: How would you describe Miri?
PJ: She’s a tomboy, inquisitive, good instincts, complex, vulnerable, stubborn, and moral.
EC: What about Moses, one of the heroes?
PJ: He is hardworking and kind, also passionate. I would think he’s moral too, but conflicted about his feelings and what he wants in life. His grandfather was supposed to leave the farm to him, and his brother. Since the death Moses is suffering from a personal loss, and he’s dealing with a personal rejection from his grandfather. He can’t even go and ask his grandfather, ‘Why? What did you do it? What upset you?’ He can’t even ask for query because his grandfather is gone. So, I think he’s dealing with a lot. The family land left to Miri had his father and grandfather grow up on this land, so, there’s family connections to this. He worked this land since he was a little boy. And, suddenly, he’s cut out of it. So, I think he has a lot more that he must deal with. Personally, I had some empathy for him for all of that because he was dealing with a lot.
EC: How would you describe the grandfather, Tom Yoder?
PJ: He had a unique way of looking at the world, and he encouraged Miri. He taught her about cattle and how to run a farm, passing on the passion he had about his farm, which partly explains why he left the farm to her. He’s a little bit of an enigma because he was such a straight talker, yet, he did not talk straight about this with his family, and he should have.
EC: What about the relationship between Miri and Moses?
PJ: He’s trying not to take it out on Miri, believing this isn’t her fault. He’s trying to protect Mari from his family, who are blaming Miri for what happened. She was supported by her parents. But Moses’ parents questioned his desire just to fulfill his grandfather’s wishes. He resents her in some ways and she’s kind of angry at him. They don’t trust the other person as just being honest and open with their feelings. Especially when the things are overheard.
EC: Did the community play a role with Tabitha and Miri?
PJ: With Tabitha, there is no solution that will please the community, because she’s divorced, and there’s no undoing it. There’s no way of fixing her situation in the eye of the community. But I think with Miri she could do what the community wanted, and she could say, ‘all right, I’ll back out. I’ll hand this back.’ Regarding Tabitha, community has written Tabitha off in a lot of ways. They’re like, ‘well, she’s going to be different. There is no helping her.’ But for Miri, they still think that they can sort of get their hands in there and mold her to their liking. I think there’s more pressure on Miri to change, because they think that she’s young enough, and she can be molded.
EC: What about the Tabitha and Jonas relationship?
PJ: He sees her as accomplished, gentle, and funny. They have feelings for each other, but hide it. She feels she lost his friendship when he possibly will become engaged. They both realize they fell in love with their best friend. And she’s jealous of the other woman, but she kind of hides it. She thinks it’s morally wrong to be jealous of this other woman, but she is very jealous. She has everything that Jonas could possibly want for the rest of his life, and she will be truly happy with him for the rest of her life, because he is a faithful type. They want a happily ever after, but don’t see how they can achieve it.
EC: What is the role of Kelsie, the other woman who broke up Tabitha’s marriage?
PJ: I needed it to bring things back around for Tabitha to deal with, the pain of that divorce. On a personal level, the reason why I brought in the other woman is because I’ve seen this sort of situation, with people that I know, where it’s never just one affair. It’s never just like, ‘oh, he did it once and he would never do it again.’ There’s always a pattern. And even when the woman has been duped and she doesn’t see the pattern yet, there’s normally a pattern there. And so, I’ve sort of seen that with women that I know who have been cheated on by their cheating exes, and have discovered, ‘oh, there was a pattern, and I had no idea when I was in the middle of it.’ I wanted to give Tabitha that opportunity to see the pattern because she sort of blamed herself thinking, ‘I was different. I was Amish. I wasn’t English enough. We didn’t quite connect. I was embarrassing to him.’ I needed Tabitha to be able to forgive herself and to be able to see that she had been enough all along, and she was never the problem. It was always him who was the problem, not her. I really needed Tabitha to see that. It wasn’t because she wasn’t enough. It was because he had personal issues that made him incapable of fidelity. I wanted to give her that opportunity to really deal with it, and it was a painful dealing, but at the end of it, she could move on with her own love, realizing, ‘I do have a lot to offer.’ She absolutely is the whole package.
EC: Next books?
PJ: Coming out the end of February the book called Her Amish Secret Admirer. This is the last book in the “Amish Chocolate Shop Brides Series.” The setting is a little Amish town and the stories center around the girls who work there. In this book, the owner of the shop receives a secret admirer letter. And she has no idea who this person could possibly be. The secret admirer is her best friend who lives next door. He’s widowed. He was trying to cheer her up. He sends another one, just to try and smooth things over to keep her happy. They end up in the situation where he’s sending these letters and he’s sort of teasing her a little bit. He’s like, ‘ooh, you’re getting letters.’ Mayhem ensues, and it all circles around the right people getting married.
Another book is titled, Amish Country Christmas, and it is about the third sister in the “Honest Antiques Shop miniseries.” Her old friend ghosted her. And they had been best, best, best friends. Now, he’s a cop, he’s back, and he’s widowed. He has a young son. She is his young son’s second grade teacher, and is also running an antiques shop with her sisters. The cops are trying to root out the criminal element, and they need her help. There is a Christmas element and a mystery where the cops are trying to figure out who’s harassing this Amish community. It has romantic suspense. Both the hero and heroine are English but are involved with the Amish community.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
