Tina’s review of Pennsylvania Patchwork (Legacy of Lancaster #2) by Kate Lloyd

ONE HEART. TWO LOVES. ONE CHOICE.

Seattle native Holly Fisher is smitten by Lancaster County, its simplicity and her long lost relatives. In the sequel to bestselling Leaving Lancaster, Holly embraces the Amish culture, learning to slow down to see what – and who – really matters. Meeting the family that her mother had kept hidden from her, Holly comes face to face with her real life and blood legacy. She also falls for the charming Zach, a handsome Mennonite veterinarian who is everything she’s ever wanted in a husband: confident, kind, successful, and authentic. And Zach proposes marriage. Is this too soon? Is this the right choice? Mother and Amish grandmother think she’s rushing into too much of a lifestyle change. Holly is in love with Zach and that precludes everything. Until she meets an attractive Amish man. And an old suitor shows up.

Pennyslvania Patchwork is the moving, richly told story of one woman’s heart, her faith and trust, and the choices she makes. Never easy, but one choice can change your destiny.

I first want to say that I am a big fan of Amish fiction. I have many favorite authors in this genre and was happy to be able to find an Amish story that was available for review. Unfortunately with Pennsylvania Patchwork by Kate Lloyd, I was unable to connect with the characters as I normally can, and I found myself often confused with what was going on in the story and kept having to go back through pages that I had already read to try to figure out if I had missed something. The story was very busy – there were four suitors and three generations of women that I was trying to keep track of, and not realizing that this was the second book of a trilogy, I spent most of my time trying to figure out what was going on.

The story is about a 30 yr old woman named Holly who recently finds out that her mother was raised Amish, but had left the community before Holy was born. Her mother,Esther, has kept this a secret from her daughter all these years. They then move back to Lancaster to live with Holly’s Amish grandmother, who Holly had been told by Beth was dead. Can you see why I might be a little confused?

In the midst of all this, we have Esther (Holly’s Mother), who is supposed to be getting married to an Amish man, while her daughter Holly is juggling 3 potential suitors – , Zach, who is a Mennonite veterinarian who has proposed to her after only knowing her a few weeks, then there is an attractive Amish man that she is suddenly interested in, and to top that off, we have the return of an old English boyfriend.!! We also meet Anna, who is Holly’s feisty Amish grandmother, and who is also battling dementia, which is getting worse with each passing day. Holly’s grandmother and mother feel like Holly is rushing into everything too fast (you think??) and therefore there is lots of drama going on in the household,

I feel that if I had read the first book in the Legacy of Lancaster series, Leaving Lancaster, I might not have been so totally confused with this story. I spent so much time back-tracking and trying to remember who was who and which guy went with which woman, that it made the story a lot less enjoyable than it probably would have been. I know that a lot of series books are written so that they can be read as a stand-alone story, but I do not feel that was possible with this series.

I might go back at some point and try to read the first book to see if I can make sense of it all, but until then, I unfortunately have to say that this was not one of my favorite books.

I rate this one a 2.5

The Series:

This book is available from David C. Cook. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.