The Bridge of Peace, by Cindy Woodsmall (review & giveaway)

  3 1/2 STARS

About the book -
Headstrong schoolteacher Lena Kauffman finds herself at the center of controversy in her Amish community when a young man in her classroom refuses to submit to her authority. As her friends and family rally around her, especially longtime friend Grey Graber, things go from bad to worse when Grey’s wife, Elsie, becomes an accidental target in trouble meant for Lena. As the present unravels around them, each must find their own way through their private pain in order to find peace and a brighter future.

My Review -
When I saw that this was about an Amish school teacher I was excited to read it. Let me start by saying this is the 5th book by Cindy Woodsmall I have read. And usually I love her books. This was not the case here, unfortunately. I did NOT dislike the book, I found it "good enough" and it did keep me interested.

The problem I had with it was that it felt very scattered to me and confusing, hard to follow. I kept having to refer to the "cheat sheet" list of characters in the back of the book, Thank you Cindy for that page, without it I would have really been lost.
Usually in a book there is a plot and maybe a sub-plot. I felt that there were really 4 plots to this book. Any one of them would have made a very good story in itself, but thrown all-together it was kind of hard for me to follow. At one time I even flipped the page back and forth looking at the page numbers, sure I had missed a page.
I loved the story of Lena, the school teacher, and wished she had focused more on that story alone.
I also felt that way too much was happening at the same time in that small Amish community. I found myself saying "Wow this community is crazy!" again, any one thing would have been great, but I felt it was too much going on to be believable.

Let me finish by reinstating that I did LIKE this book, I just didn't love it like I did all her others. I don't feel that was her best one. This book did get some very good reviews from others, so maybe I am just being too picky.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

 Giveaway -
I am giving away my copy of this book. To enter to win, please comment here or email me at - forevereading at gmail dot com
* Please only USA and Canada entries .
*Winner will be chosen and announced on Feb. 21st.
*** Please let it be known that this book was damaged in the shipping process. The back bottom corner of the book got "scrunched" the cover and pages are bent. Also the front cover is cut, like from a box cutter. I do not use a cutter when opening books, and this was the way I pulled the book out of the packaging. So I apologize for the condition of the book I am giving away. Of course it is still very readable!