The Haven by Suzanne Woods Fisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Haven is book two in the "Stoney Ridge Series and I couldn’t wait to pick this book up. If you recall from my review of The Keeper, the story follows the Lapp family. I really enjoyed the first book but I felt like this one was missing just a little something—don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it but it didn’t really pull me in the way the first book had. I think I felt like there was no real conclusion to the ending and if these were meant to be read as a stand-alone—I would have been really upset that the story wasn’t concluded for Sadie. I guess I sound contradictory—to say I liked but also that I felt upset. I guess—I like the story but I’m eager to hurry and pick up book three to try to find out what happens with Sadie and I’m praying that book three does actually do that or I am going to feel a little cheated.
This book picks up some time after The Keeper. Julia has married Rome and moved away and Sadie is coming back home after spending time with them and getting them settled in. When Sadie comes back home she surprises the entire community by bringing home a baby! This causes a bit of a stain on Sadie’s reputation and she is fairly disappointed that her boyfriend immediately assumes the worse of her.
Because of her outs with Gideon, Sadie finds herself learning more about the handsome cowboy that is working on the family’s farm. Will has his own secrets though and getting close to Sadie might not be the best for either of them. I honestly and truthfully liked Will’s character over Gideon. Gid is just—not right for Sadie. Perhaps he might have been except his jealousy was a bit over the top for me to ever trust him.
Aside from all that is going on in her love life—the bigger part of the book revolves around Joe-Joe, the baby that Sadie has brought home with her. I wasn’t really surprised at the secrets surrounding his birth and how he came to be with Sadie—but it was bittersweet and very sad. I felt like the father of the baby had perhaps been taken advantage of so this is something I hope to learn a bit more about in book three. This book was filled with a message of forgiveness and a reminder that we need to be careful of how we spend our time judging others.
Overall I enjoyed the book but again—I’m hoping that the conflicting feelings I’m having are satisfactorily addressed in book 3, The Lesson.
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Suzanne has loved to write since she was a young teen. After college, she started to write for magazines and became a contributing editor for Christian Parenting Today magazine. Her family moved to Hong Kong for four years, just as the internet was developing, and she continued to write articles in a 44-story high-rise apartment, sending manuscripts 7,000 miles away with a click of a key.
After returning from Hong Kong, Suzanne decided to give her first novel a try. For four and a half months, she worked on an antediluvian computer in a cramped laundry room. She didn't even tell her husband what she was up to. When the novel was completed, she told her family at dinner one night that she had written a book. "That's why there's no food in this house!" said her slightly insensitive sons.
Undaunted...Suzanne found a small royalty publisher for that book and wrote three more (all earned multiple). With help from an agent, she has five books currently under contract with Revell. On September 1st, Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World, a non-fiction book of stories and examples about the Old Order Amish, will be released by Revell. The Choice, a novel about the Amish, will follow on January 1st.
Writing, for Suzanne, is a way to express a love of God and His word. With every book or article, she hopes readers get a sense of what faith really looks like in the daily grind. She hopes they realize that life can be hard, but God is good, and never to confuse the two.
Suzanne can be found on-line at: www.suzannewoodsfisher.com
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