The Quilters Daughter - Book Review

The Quilters Daughter
by Wanda E. Brunstetter
Barbour Publishing (Ohio)
Authors Website

We have all heard of Lancaster County, right? That county in Pennsylvania where the Amish people live? Well, Wanda Brunstetter loves writing about the Amish people and she has written a number of books about them. Almost all involving a romance story. 

This book is Book 2 in the Daughters of Lancaster County series. The first thing to understand is that there are Amish people all over the USA - and in Ohio there is also a large Amish community as well. This community is centred around Holmes County and the town of Berlin - not far from Canton, Ohio

Now because this is book 2, there is a rather large piece of back story missing, as all 3 books in this series are all about the same family.  In Book 1 of the Daughters of Lancaster County- the Shopkeepers Daughter - the daughter Naomi, puts her baby brother Zach down and leaves him for a few minutes. When she returns he is missing - kidnapped. And apart from one advertisement in a newspaper, he has not been seen or heard from since and no ransom demand ever shows up. Naomi's mother had died giving birth to Zach, and some time later Naomi's father (Abraham) remarries - to an Amish woman named Fannie Mae.

In Book 2 - Fannie Mae - who had come from the Amish community in Berlin, Ohio - is pregnant with twins and is having a hard time coping,. She has been put on complete bedrest so she cannot do the house and family chores. Her daughter (from her first marriage)  Abby Miller (she runs a quilt shop in Berlin) offers to come and help Fannie in Lancaster County. Abby is about to get married to Lester. Fannie also runs a quilt shop in Lancaster County.

Abby puts her marriage on hold and cones to stay with her mother. She meets her step siblings - Naomi, Matthew, Jake and Norman. Only Naomi is married with children. None of Fannie's step sons are married yet despite being in their 20s and being eligible for marriage. The Amish dont arrange marriages. The children are allowed to find their own partners - but marriage is encouraged from age 18 upwards.

Some months later, Fannie gives birth to her twins. Abby continues to stay in Lancaster and takes over all the household chores. She seems to be reluctant to return to Berlin. She has not been sleeping well - she has a recurring nightmare about a fire and a kitten. One day she gets a phone call from Berlin to be told that her quilt shop back home was burnt to the ground and that her fiance Lester died trying to save the precious quilts inside. Abby returns to Berlin for the funeral. She then returns to Lancaster County and takes over all the chores of raising the twins, cleaning the house and cooking all the food for her mother and her stepfathers family.

Abby has to keep herself busy so that she doesnt break down and start blaming herself for her fiance's death. If she had returned to Ohio earlier, the shop would not have burned down, Lester would still be alive, and she would now be married to him.

Fannie's cousin takes Abby off to Montana in order to give Abby a new perspective on life. Abby learns that it is Gods will that these things happen and while it does hurt to lose a loved one, you cannot blame yourself and nothing you could have done or said will necessarily have made a difference.

Abby eventually returns to Lancaster Country and admits to her step-brother that she is finally ready to move on with her life. Matthew asks if he can court her - and Abby indicates that yes she is interested.

Interspered with chapters about Abby and her family, we also have chapters about young Jimmy Scott, adopted son of Jim and Linda Scott who live in Washington state. Linda does not know this, but Jim stole Baby Jimmy from a table in the back yard of an Amish home in Pennsylvania and his conscience has been bothering him ever since. This leads to him become rude, curt and working long hours. He is a contract painter - he paints buildings. Their marriage is breaking down and Linda does not know why,

It also doesnt help that Linda is very overprotective of young Jimmy - almost smothering him - and she barely allows him out of her sight all day. She makes a new friend who encourages her to attend church. Linda becomes a christian and then tries to get her husband to become a christian as well. Of course Jim has no interest.

When Jim's father is diagnosed with heart problems and must have surgery, Linda purchases plane tickets for the family to return to Ohio to see his father. Jim is not happy as it reminds him about the Amish from whom he stole baby Jimmy.

Nothing further is resolved about Jimmy other than Jim gets rid of the Amish quilt, the baby had been wrapped in,. The baby quilt ends up in Montana where it is given to Abby who takes it home to Lancaster Country and gives it to Naomi. Naomi recognises it as being Zach's quilt because she is the one who repaired it after one corner of it was torn. So this means that Zach is alive and living in Washington state.

Book 3  takes place some years in the future. Jimmy Scott discovers that he was born in Pennsylvania and returns to that state to find his family. He meets and falls in love woth Leona Weaver - the Bishops Daughter,. And yes the Amish do have bishops.

While I personally did not like all the bible verses and the christian backstory of the Scotts, I did enjoy reading about the Amish culture. If I see books 1 or 3 of this series, I will read them, but I wont go out of my way to look for them.

One reason I like the Amish people is that they have a much simpler life - they live a slower life - almost like the early pioneers did - and I for one would love to return to that simpler life - although I would really miss the computer and the internet in the process.  But that is what books are for. So it's a good thing I love reading too.

Review of the year 2011

This photo is of my family taken just last week for Xmas.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Years

Well, as you can see, I barely wrote anything on this blog this year.
Wait. Thats not true. I wrote tons of stuff this year. I just didn't write on this blog.

As per a post I wrote on this blog back in January, I got hooked on Squidoo. A year later - my first year anniversary is tomorrow - and I am still hooked on Squidoo. I have written 170 lenses (or pages) in my first year. I still read a few books, but I write the reviews on Squidoo instead of writing them here.

I do apologise for not keeping up with this blog. I barely managed 25 posts this year. Gasp, That is just so bad!!! But I guess 4 years is pretty good to keep a blog going. Most people would have stopped blogging long before now.

Anyway, as I said, I am still hooked on Squidoo. I have found some great friends there. So for the year 2012, you can expect to find me there and not here. My profile page is here under the name of Serenia.

My family have gotten through the madness that is Christmas. We are now coming up to New Years.

The state of the world and politics is getting worse. I fully expect World War 3 to break out in 2012. I am also wondering if this is what the Mayans meant when they claimed the end of the age (world) will happen in December 2012. 

That is what the world is building up to, simply because certain  governments will NOT step back and think rationally and logically about how their actions are affecting the majority of people on this planet. These governments are just too greedy to get what they want - and they dont care about the rest of the people either. This was shown by the Occupy Wall Street protest movement that started up in September of this year. It represented the 99% (the majority of the populations) protesting against the financial institutes and the banks (the very wealthy and greedy 1%)  for destroying the economy.

Today as the new year is about to tick over - most of those OWS protests have been evicted by city councils. In New York, in Oakland (California) and in Toronto. Some of the protesters have been in battles against the police. People have been injured - some seriously. Most other protests have given up because of the Xmas Holidays and/or Winter (Dunedin, New Zealand). Other protests are still trying to stay in their place of occupation and are fighting their municipal councils (Auckland, New Zealand).

The western world is in a major Depression. The economy has gone way past a Recession. So far inflation is running at around 3% (at least here in Canada it is). But wages (for those few who are still employed) are either frozen or rising at only 1%. Thus making the prices of food, gas and other items too expensive. People are being laid off from their jobs, they are unable to pay their mortages and their homes are being foreclosed by the banks. So many families are being forced out of their homes, it is not funny.

I graduated from my college in 2009 and have not been able to find work. I did seriously look during 2010 but I didnt look quite so much in 2011. I guess you can say I have given up looking - but shhh, dont tell my son. He is not at all happy with me not working. He wants me to work, so I can bring in more money for the family - purely to buy him more toys!!!!

We did make one major purchase this year. We purchased another computer. We now have 3 computers - one for each member of the family. 

The very old one is running on Windows XP and is 6 years old.
The not so old one runs on Windows Vista and is 3 years old.
The brand new computer has Windows 7 but is not yet hooked up to our little network.

We are currently waiting for a 2 Terabyte (that is 2048 Gigabyte)  harddrive to arrive from Hong Kong - in order to be able to save everything as we move stuff from one computer to another. We had to purchase this harddrive from HongKong. It was a lot cheaper. Only cost us $50 plus shipping. A brand new 2 Terabyte harddrive in Canada costs over $200!!!

Anyway, this is my review of the year 2011. I do still hope to get a part time job in 2012. I will still be looking, but I wont be making it a full time job.

So I wish all my readers a safe and happy New Years and a peaceful year in 2012.

Ciao!!

Anniversary of sorts

I just wanted to make a note of todays important anniversary.
This is NOT book related - This is a personal anniversary.
And no its not my wedding anniversary - That's in October.

5 years ago today - December 13, 2006 - I finally became a permanent resident of Canada - after 5 years of processing.

I have been in Canada now for 11 years - I spent the first 6 of those years as a visitor or on a work permit. And the last 5 years as a permanent resident.

I hope to become a Canadian citizen sometime in the next 5 years.

Aftermath of latest ER episode

I went back to the hospital yesterday for an ultrasound on my legs and they found exactly - NOTHING.

They dont know what caused my legs to swell, nor do they know what caused the chest pains either.
But they were looking for evidence of deep vein thrombosis - so far no signs. So I was released and allowed to go home.

And another trip to the ER

My heart started giving me some pains last night, and my legs swelled up. Both are possible symptoms of Congestive Heart Failure - something that last happened to me in January 2010 when I spent 6 days in hospital being diagnosed with Graves Disease.

So at 1 AM this morning I grabbed a taxi and went to the local hospital ER. I spent the next 8 hours dozing on and off, having blood tests done, a chest X-ray, even a CT scan. Everything came back fine. The only concern was my red and swollen legs. They gave me some blood thinners which eased the pain in my chest.

I was discharged at 9 AM this morning with instructions to go back tomorrow for an ultrasound on my legs and then they will re-assess. I will have to wait and see what happens then.

William and Catherine - Book Review

William and Catherine - Their Story
By Andrew Morton
St Martins Press 2011

Now I don't normally read this stort of stuff, but I have to admit I know next to nothing about Catherine, the new Duchess of Cambridge.

I dont watch TV. I dont read all the gossip although I do read the headlines. So when I spotted this book on the shelf at the library, I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn who they are, how they met and what makes them tick.

This is a coffee table book - not too thick and yet it has LOTS of photos.

I read it in just 4 hours and really enjoyed it. Now I know how they met, how their courtship ran. why he waited so long to propose (giving her the title Waitey Katey in the press - a nasty name IMO). This book also describes their wedding (April 29th, 2011) in great detail, and then ends. A very suitable place to end.

If you want to know the basics about William and Catherine, and their lives, without reading a 500 page dry biography, then this is the book to read.

Freedom - Book Review

Freedom
By Daniel Suarez
Signet Books 2010
Authors website


This book is a continuation of the first book - Daemon.

I was introduced to MMORPG games by my son who loves playing them. MMORPG = Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Every person creates a character (the most common types are soldier, ranger, thief, mage, wizard and cleric) and every character is represented in the game by an avatar. The avatar has information about the character attached to it. The most obvious information being name, character type, health and game level.

The darknet is the virtual space by which users (humans) can access the Daemon and other users. Not all users choose to join the darknet. Because the Daemon knows everything about you, when you join the darknet, your avatar will show everything about you, including your personal worth, your credit level and most important, your reputation.

Everyone is measured out of 5 stars and the higher number of stars you have, and the more responses you have - the better your reputation is. For example Loki has half a star over 5000 - which means 5000 people have given him either 1 star or no stars - his actions means that he is not a nice person. Peter Sebeck on the other hand has a reputation of 4 stars over 5000. That means that 5000 people have given him an average 4 out of 5 stars.

The world is rapidly going downhill after the emergence of the Daemon. There are food shortages. Unemployment is over 16%. Gas is at $3.58 a gallon. The big agricultural companies want to take over the smaller farms and plant their GMOs. The larger companies are desperate to control the Daemon - because it knows everything about everyone and knowledge is power.

The Daemon has "infected" computers everywhere. Nothing is private. The Daemon has even hired lawyers to sue the US government to accept and acknowledge that the Daemon is a sentient being and has a right to exist. The US government and big business are desperate to hide their activities and not have the Daemon spread knowledge of their activites to all the people of the world - which is what the Daemon actually does. It blackmails the government and the big corporations.

The Daemon has access to all security cameras and CCTV videos all over the world. The Daemon sees all, hears all and knows all.

In this sequel, Peter Sebeck is on a virtual and vital quest - given to him by the Daemon. He has to justify the freedom of humanity. The Daemon needs to know if humanity can create a true democracy - where individual rights are not ignored by big business and government.

Prove that humanity will prevent its own destruction and you will have justified humanity's freedom. If you fail - then humanity will serve the Daemon.

Loki is out to destroy the Daemon by any means necessary, He uses razorbacks - motorcycles that have been rebuilt as killer machines and are under remote control. These machines actually kill people - chopping them to bloody bits. The descriptions are very brutal.

The Major (name unknown) also wants to keep control of the people in the hands of the government and of the corporations, so he too is out to destroy the Daemon.

Jon Ross is desperate to help the Daemon survive. He wants humanity to be able to control themselves and determine their own fate - and not have a few greedy powermongers determine it for them.

This was an excellent novel - quite scary in some places with the razorbacks being very brutal and the economy being in chaos, just like it is today in our real world.

This is due to the activities and control of greedy powermongers - both in government and in the higher echelons of certain corporations.