The Scent of Cherry Blossoms

For awhile now I have been a fan of Amish fiction, having read many different authors within this genre.  When given the chance to read and review Cindy Woodsmall's book The Scent of Cheery Blossoms, I jumped at the chance.  I received my review copy yesterday.  It probably came a day or two earlier, but I was  away at a conference.  Anyway, I couldn't wait to start reading this book last night.

Annie Martin comes from a troubled Old Order Mennonite family.  Her father had left the family about 10 years earlier.  Annie doesn't understand her mom and seems to always be fighting with her mom.  She dreams about her grandfather's cherry orchard.  Finally her mom tells her to go to her grandfathers (daadi) home until the mother is ready for Annie to come home. After arriving at her Daadi's home, she heads over to help the neighbors (old order Amish). Annie ends up helping the Zook's at the diner they run, but that her Daadi Moses owns. While helping at the diner Annie is able to renew her friendship with one of the Zook boys Aden.

The family is struggling to handle the work load at the diner as one of the boys Roman has left for a week in an effort to help his uncle fix the generator.  Roman always loved working with mechanical things and the family is hoping that this will help him heal mentally after the accident 5 years ago that left him partially paralyzed.

While Annie is pitching in at the diner she is able to work with Aden.  Annie and Aden have been friends for a long time but now that they are working side by side their friendship seems to grow into something more.  Both Annie and Aden know that this is wrong and will never work.  Both are baptized members of their respective religions.   Annie's daadi Moses discovers this friendship and is determined to put a stop to it.  So much so that he threatens the Zooks, telling them that if Aden doesn't break off this relationship that he will pull out of the partnership with the diner.  This will cause severe problems for the Zooks.   As Old Order Amish, they are not allowed to have electricity.  Without electricity, the health department will shut the diner down.

I would give this book 4 stars out of 5.

This was a quick and easy read, but didn't have the draw necessary to keep me awake at night.  I enjoyed the different plot lines. Besides the main story line between Aden and Annie, there is also tension between Aden and his twin brother Roman, and also the tension within Roman at not being whole after the accident 5 years ago.