I could not put this book down. The plot is so good and I kept turning pages to see what would happen next. I wanted to know all of Clayton’s story.
Many thanks to Harvest House Publishers and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

A gentle well-paced tale of love and devotion, family life and practical difficulties with a dark undercurrent. I was gradually drawn in and learnt more and more about this unusual community and the values of its members. This is not a book you can set aside easily as you become caught up and don't mind how far the story must go to ensure all the threads are carefully spooled.

I hadn't realised there's a whole genre of Amish stories. If this is representative of their quality then I'll look out for others.

Hurtful secrets are out in the open after years once again. Will the present needs help to solve the past hurts?

Amish shop owner Matthew Zook thinks about spreading his business. He is smart, competent and very ready to get the family business running in red numbers again. But his eagerness is shaken when the big hotel company announces that the lot of land, where the new building is intended to be build on, has actually a different owner than the rest of the property! And the owner is no one else than the infamous Clayton Raber, the Amish clockmaker who had murdered his wife and got away from it. The hotel company plans to build the new hotel facilities on the plot and makes no secret of their plan to find the owner first and offer a lot of money for the lot. But Matthew is determined to try his luck and find Clayton first - that is, if he is even alive. He left his local Amish community decades earlier and no one has heard from him since. Matthew, who himself grow up in the same room as Clayton, has always felt some affinity toward him and is willing to believe that the guy might be innocent. And the intricate clocks hidden in the old shop building might be clue to the past...

What a pleasant surprise! I expected the heavy, emotionally draining read - and instead I found story filled with forgiveness and newness (both in sense of new beginnings and purest hope), even.
The story is told by two narrators - present-time Matthew, trying to make his own path and Clayton, the handicapped guy with a temper, who is hopelessly in love with his neighbours´ daughter Miriam. Miriam is different from the traditional Amish girls: she is freely feeling and thinking - and loving the sparkly, luxurious items. When Miriam, following her love to anything emotional, gets into trouble, there is a chance for Clayton to offer her his love in marriage.
But can a marriage like this even work?
Well, I am not sure. But I am very sure that the novel works for me! I went out from the pages feeling hopeful and strenghtened in the decision not to judge, as we almost never know the whole story.
From the two narrators I like Clayton much - he is more real to me. I get his pain, his fate as a handicapped guy always struggling for respect and independence, his love - and even his decisions, even I do not support the loveless marriages. But I understand him trying to get his chance for love.
And I am astonished by the idea of God working to reveal the secrets in His own time, what differs SO MUCH from our own ideas. To trust God we don´t understand is hard. To see God working is glorious.

The book even has some innovative motifs for the Amish novel - as the idea of accompanying wife during the delivery - O_o :)

Recommended read.