Stitches in Time (The Deacon's Family #2) by Suzanne Woods Fisher

Book Description

Detachment had worked well as a life strategy for horse trainer Sam Schrock. Until he met Mollie Graber . . .

New to Stoney Ridge, schoolteacher Mollie has come to town for a fresh start. Aware of how fleeting and fragile life is, she wants to live it boldly and bravely. When Luke Schrock, new to his role as deacon, asks the church to take in foster girls from a group home, she's the first to raise her hand. The power of love, she believes, can pick up the dropped stitches in a child's heart and knit them back together.

Mollie envisions sleepovers and pillow fights. What the 11-year-old twins bring to her home is anything but. Visits from the sheriff at midnight. Phone calls from the school truancy officer. And then the most humiliating moment of all: the girls accuse Mollie of drug addiction.

There's only one thing that breaks through the girls' hard shell--an interest in horses. Reluctantly and skeptically, Sam Schrock gets drawn into Mollie's chaotic life. What he didn't expect was for love to knit together the dropped stitches in his own heart . . . just in time.

Suzanne Woods Fisher invites you back to the little Amish church of Stoney Ridge for a touching story of the power of love.

My thoughts:

It was such a pleasure to revisit Stoney Ridge, a wonderful community that I discovered in 2015 and one I have loved ever since that first visit..  It's always a little different with characters who aren't always perfect, but that's how life is, right?

Speaking of imperfect characters, the author brings us up to date with what's been happening in the community.  So, Luke Schrock has drawn the lot to be the new deacon, a disbelief felt not only to him but shared by many others within the community.  He's a good man but he made some really bad decisions in the past and if you've read the first book in the series, Mending Fences, you'll know what I mean.  Luke and Izzy are newly married, Fern is back and still grieving the loss of her husband, Amos and we meet some new characters who definitely kept me turning pages as fast as I could to find out what shenanigans they would be into next.

Molly Graber is the new schoolteacher and is so excited when an opportunity comes along for her to take in foster children that she's blindsided by the girls she fosters, who are not even remotely like what she had imagined. Through the chaos of finding and keeping homes for the children each of the foster families will learn something about themselves and open their hearts more than they thought possible.  I  appreciated the author not sugarcoating that life would be easier for the kids in their new homes and it takes a lot to gain the trust of all involved in the process.

I thoroughly enjoyed this engaging. well written and perfectly paced novel.
I received a complimentary copy from the publisher.  All opinions are completely my own.