GENRE: AMISH ROMANCE
PUBLISHER: THOMAS NELSON
PUBLICATION DATE: OCTOBER 2, 2012
RATING: 5 OUT OF 5 – NEAR PERFECT
PROS: Realistic portrayal of the Amish; continues the series’ exploration of more taboo topics; progression of Danielle’s faith was believable; loved the way Vera’s character evolved; good presentation of a young couple making marriage work
CONS: None!
Danielle Kent has had a difficult life, but it seems like things are looking up for now that she’s found a new family, got a job at a local restaurant and dating a handsome Amish man who has made plans to become English. Matthew Lapp has assured Danielle that he loves her, so when she discovers that she’s pregnant, she assumes that he’ll leave his family and settle down with her, even if it is sooner than they’d planned. What she doesn’t expect is for him to break her heart and leave behind both his Amish family and his unborn child. How can she raise this baby, alone and at the age of eighteen?
Levi Detweiler has been Danielle’s best friend ever since she moved to Canaan and began attending Amish church services with her new family. His heart also breaks when he hears that Matthew refuses to take responsibility for his child. Although he’s never considered leaving the Amish faith, he finds himself inexplicably called to marry Danielle and raise the child as his own, through a series of dreams and signs that he can only assume have come from God.
Not everyone is happy about Danielle and Levi’s decision to marry, least not Levi’s Amish family, who are convinced that he’s ruining his life by leaving the faith. Levi is sure that he can keep his faith while being married to an outsider, but even Danielle feels uncomfortable with all that Levi is giving up to be with her. Can they really make this marriage work? And is it truly the best thing for Danielle’s unborn child?
Out-of-wedlock pregnancy isn’t a topic I’ve seen explored in many Amish novels, particularly when the mother herself isn’t Amish. But if anyone can tackle this sort of topic, it’s Beth Wiseman. Although I enjoyed the slow-moving, rather conventional romantic plots of her Daughters of the Promise series, I appreciate that she’s delving into more serious topics (rape, adultery, out-of-wedlock pregnancy) in the Land of Canaan series. While it’s nice to escape into an idealised, simplistic view of Amish life, some novels portray the Amish as being a little bit too perfect, so I’m glad that Beth is here to remind us the Amish struggle with the same issues as the rest of the world.
That said, I don’t want to scare typical Amish readers into thinking this series may be too serious or heavy compared to other books in the genre. His Love Endures Forever may examine the ramifications of premarital sex and the difficulties the Amish face when they leave the faith, but it also contains many of the typical features of Amish fiction. There’s still the overwhelming sense of community, even in a small settlement like Canaan. I loved the way that, despite their disapproval of Levi and Danielle’s relationship, Levi’s family rallied around Danielle when she had pregnancy complications, and how Emily and Martha helped Danielle to improve her housekeeping and cooking skills. The importance of forgiveness, always associated with the Amish, also resonated throughout the story.
I wasn’t sure how the spiritual aspect of the novel was going to pan out, considering how little faith Danielle had at the start of the book, but I felt that her beliefs progressed in a realistic manner. Christian novels tend to shy away from exploring relationships in which one person has little or no faith, or they present such a relationship as doomed from the start. Occasionally, they avoid this awkward topic by having the faithless character suddenly turn to God just before the wedding. Life isn’t like that; and I would know, since my husband didn’t truly develop his own faith in God until six months before we got married. I appreciated that Beth chose to show how Levi and his family gently guided Danielle in her faith without being too pushy or overbearing.
The progression of Danielle’s faith also made a previously unlikable character all the more relatable. Initially, I found Levi’s mother, Vera, to be rather caricatured in her disapproval of Levi’s relationship with Danielle. But as she helped Danielle throughout the latter stages of her pregnancy and unintentionally guided her along her faith journey, I came to appreciate Vera’s personal worries about her grown son and the decisions he was making. By the end of the novel, I’d come to care for Vera just as much as I did Danielle, in spite of her previously unkind and narrow-minded treatment of Levi and Danielle’s relationship. Her turnaround in character never felt sudden or forced, and even I was quite surprised that Beth was able to show such different sides of a person in one single book.
Danielle and Levi’s relationship didn’t take the form of a conventional romance, since they were friends long before the start of the book and are essentially thrown into a romantic relationship when Danielle discovers that she’s pregnant. I expected their marriage to come across as one of convenience, almost like a historical mail-order bride story or another similar plot device. It’s hard to describe how their relationship truly did progress, other than to say that it’s clear that Danielle and Levi had always had feelings for each other, but didn’t realise it until they were catapulted into a romantic relationship. I appreciated that, despite their unconventional situation, they were able to make their relationship work with relatively little difficulty. A lot of Christian novels fall into the stereotype of portraying the first year of marriage, in any situation, as being ridiculously hard, so it was a nice change to see a young couple making their relationship work and not letting the little things (Danielle’s poor cooking abilities, the work still needing to be completed on their house) bother them.
Although I loved the conclusion to His Love Endures Forever, I truly hope this isn’t the final Land of Canaan novel. There were some hints about members of Levi’s family returning to Pennsylvania, and I did wonder if Sarah (an Amish girl that Levi courted before he married Danielle) might someday get a story of her own. Either way, I’m sure I’ll be reading Beth’s next Amish novel, regardless of the setting or characters. As His Love Endures Forever demonstrates, Beth never fails to produce realistic stories with believable characters whose struggles truly resonate with the reader.
Review title provided by Thomas Nelson.