Book Review: The Christmas Singing by Cindy Woodsmall

The Christmas Singing is a beautiful novella about love lost, love regained, and reconciliation.

Mattie is an Amish young woman with a delightful personality who is a highly-skilled and gifted cake decorator in Ohio.  In the three years she has lived there, she has built a highly successful business due to her hard work and creative talents.  Her decision to move to Ohio from her native Pennsylvania was due to a wrong conclusion drawn from seeing her fiance hug another woman.

Mattie's former fiance', Gideon, is a carpenter with a secret that he chose to hide from Mattie in order to protect her from going through a difficult time.  He let Mattie think wrongly of him, a decision that caused unnecessary suffering -- not just for them but for others as well.

When Mattie's shop burns down, she is forced to go back to Pennsylvania where she is around Gideon for the first time in years.  There is obvious and understandable friction between the two.  Both of them learn a few things about themselves and each other in the course of the story which results in a beautiful reconciliation.

While reading the book, I wondered if this was actually the second of a series.  It seemed like the author was giving a brief synopsis of how another couple in the book discovered love for each other.  I looked it up, and sure enough, this is book 2.  The previous book is called The Sound of Sleigh Bells and will be on my To Read list very soon!

Cindy Woodsmall is one of my favorite Amish Christian Fiction authors.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  I began reading it while on a trip to South Mississippi to visit family for Thanksgiving.  When we pulled up into my mom's driveway, I had about 5 pages remaining in the book.  It was rather hard to wait a couple of hours before I could finish the book.  Even though I "knew" that she and Gideon would reconcile, it still felt like a cliffhanger wondering if they would or if she would marry another man, Sol, whom she had been seeing for the last couple of years.  Speaking of which, I think that Cindy Woodsmall should write a book about Sol and another young lady who rubs him the wrong way.  I just know they should end up together!

I really enjoyed this book, and I highly recommend to it you.

Reviews on Blogging for Books can be reviewed and ranked by others.  I would love it if you would visit my review on the Blogging for Books site and rank my review.  Upon ranking my review, you will be entered in a drawing to win your own copy of this book!  Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings if you give me a bad review.  I'd rather have an honest bad review than a dishonest good review.  "Faithful are the wounds of a friend: but the kisses of an enemy deceitful." (Proverbs 27:6)


Here is the link for my review.

FTC Disclaimer:  I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.”  I was not required to provide a positive review.  All opinions expressed are my own.