{"id":916,"date":"2014-09-17T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2014\/09\/17\/book-review-joyful\/"},"modified":"2014-09-17T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T10:00:00","slug":"book-review-joyful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2014\/09\/17\/book-review-joyful\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Joyful"},"content":{"rendered":"
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 A young Amish couple gets a second chance at love in New York Times bestselling author Shelley Shepard Gray’s final book in her Return to Sugarcreek series.<\/p>\n

Randall Beiler is doing his best to put his family and the farm’s needs first, even forsaking love. But though he tries, Randall knows he needs help caring for his younger siblings and keeping the house together.<\/p>\n

When his brother offers pretty Elizabeth Nolt a job taking care of the house and cooking for the family, Randall is furious—and guilty about the way he once broke Elizabeth’s heart. But when he learns that Elizabeth and her grandmother are struggling to make ends meet, he knows the offer, no matter how painful, is the right thing for everyone.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth wants to refuse—to stay far away from the man who hurt her—but she needs the money. Though she vows to protect her heart, spending time in the Beiler household makes Elizabeth realize that, while she’s older and wiser, her love for Randall still burns strong.<\/p>\n

Randall, too, seems to want something more. But does he want Elizabeth because he truly loves her—or because he needs a housekeeper? If Randall sincerely wants something more, he must find a way to show Elizabeth—or risk losing his chance at love forever.<\/p>\n

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\nOh how I hate to see a good series end. It seems like just when you feel as if you know everyone and you can’t wait to see what happens in their lives, it’s all over. It had been quite some time since I had read another book in this series and so, in some ways, it was like learning about everyone all over again. Like the other book, I very much enjoyed immersing myself into Sugarcreek. This book showed a side of the Amish community that I haven’t seen in other books…money and the need for it. It’s easy to think of the Amish world as that of a fairy tale land, but in this book, the reader gets to see that money worries touch everyone. I won’t give anything away but I was so happy in the way that the author wrapped up stories that I had followed through the other books, as well as Randall and Elizabeth’s story.<\/p>\n

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I received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review.  All thoughts, comments and opinions are my own.<\/i>
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 A young Amish couple gets a second chance at love in New York Times bestselling author Shelley Shepard Gray’s final book in her Return to Sugarcreek series. Randall Beiler is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}