An Honest Love by Kathleen Fuller Series: Hearts of Middlefield #2
Published by Thomas Nelson on March 15, 2010
Genres: Amish & Mennonite, Christian, Fiction, Romance
Pages: 304
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Anna must find the courage to tell Lukas the truth. Will he find the courage to forgive her?
Anna was once betrayed by someone she loved deeply. In an attempt to never be hurt again, she and her mother relocated to Middlefield, Ohio. It was the ideal place for Anna's broken heart to mend. In Middlefield, Anna withdrew from risk, placing all her attention on managing the new gift shop she and her mom bought.
When Lukas introuces himself, Anna can't resist her attraction to him. Though she finds herself falling in love, she's hiding a piece of her past in fear that their future will be destroyed if she tells him the truth.
But love can't be built on lies and the past comes rushing back to Anna in an irreversible way. Now Lukas must decide how he will react to Anna's betrayal. As they cling to their belief in an honest love, they realize it's a path they must walk together even as it leads to unexpected places.
Picture it, BOMO, September 2017. Sorry I had to channel my inner Sofia for a moment. Perhaps, if you share my awkward sense of humor, it’ll make sense to you in a moment. Don’t worry if it doesn’t that probably means you are normal. Almost exactly (within 6 days!) a year ago I review the first book in this series, ‘A Man of His Word’ and I specifically mention that I couldn’t wait to get into the next book in this older series. Through many bumps and bruises and hiccups along my journey it only took me a year. In a series of events worthy of a Sofia tale so is the story of this last year. Between my fiddy badillion a month winter electric bills that eliminated the ability to purchases books, to the library not having this book and no interest in purchasing an older book (despite my whining), to losing my best friend which turned my life on it’s side, to taking a month and a half break from blogging (and reading!) because something had to give. . .here we are. A lot has happened in real life but this book was patiently waiting to reach my hands and make it’s way to this page. So here ya go!
I just have to say it. Their love may be honest but their relationship is anything but! We are back with the Byler family and this time around we get to know Lukas. Lukas and his love for woodwork and making things and avoiding entanglements that don’t have a future. Well, until he meets Anna Esh, new to town and the proud owner of a gift shop in town. In helping to build displays and bringing toys to sell in the shop he slowly finds that she might just be the missing piece in his life. Anna, on the other hand, stright from being jilted by her fiance has relocated to Ohio with her mother to help out her aging bachelor uncle and run the store she had purchased with her mother wants nothing to do with romance or love. Until she does. However, she’s also got some other things going on in her life that she keeps secret, secret from everyone, including Lukas. Anna’s secret however is setting up her relationship and future with Lukas to be built completely on lies. How on earth do you plan a future together with shared goals when the secret you carry will crush all of that to the ground? Why do you lie about what you want, I mean you do want it so that part not a lie, but lie all the same when you know those goals can never be? And when the lies and secrets are revealed, when it’s too late to make different choices, do you expect everyone to be OK with it. Lukas may have fallen into an honest love but Anna was participating in a love built on LIES. Yeah. That. OK, fine she’s not a terrible person. Her lies were built on fear and a misguided hope that God could (would) just fix everything because she begged him to.
I loved the side story that continued with Aaron from ‘A Man of His Word’. Aaron, a man with his own troubles and past. A man who the community doubts and and who can’t forgive himself. A man who has paid a hefty price for his past and mistakes (jail time) but has renewed himself in his faith and was baptized into the church. I have loved watching him come out of his shell just a minute at a time and finding himself with community. Perhaps not ‘THE’ community but a community of people who believe in him, root for him, and care for him. I hope to see him again in the next book, ‘A Hand to Hold’, and that it doesn’t take me another year to bring it here. Aaron deserves happiness and a future to hold onto instead of the ghosts of his past and who he was.
About Kathleen Fuller
Kathleen Fuller is the best-selling author of over thirty books, including the Hearts of Middlefield series.
1. I started writing January 1, 2000. New year, new millenium, new career.
2. I’m a former special education teacher, specializing in teaching the blind and visually impaired.
3. I was born in New Orleans, LA, raised in Little Rock, AR, and call Geneva, OH my home.
4. On June 12, 2013, my husband and I will celebrate twenty years of marriage.
5. We have three awesome kids.
6. I love chocolate. ‘Nuff said.
7. I’ve written and published over twenty-five novels and novellas.
8. I also write nonfiction–interviews, devotionals, Bible studies, essays, blog posts…
9. We have three dogs–Biscuit, Mollie, and Chief. And one cat, creatively named Kitty.
10. If I could go anywhere in the world I would go to Ireland.
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