Her Forbidden Christmas Match by Emma Miller is the first novel I have read in the genre of Amish romance. I picked this up from a Little Free Library. I had seen Amish romances at my former library yet never considered them until I came across this freebie with a Christmas theme. This was a short and speedy read of only 202 pages, so action must move at lightning speed in order to get two mismatched people engaged by Christmas.
Willa Koffman is Amish and meets Aaron Raber, who has fled from his strict cultish Mennonite sect in Paraguay. Aaron is a widower with a young daughter named Maggie and blames the church for the death of his wife, since his bishop forbade him from taking her to a doctor. When faced with the possibility that his sect might take his daughter away from him, Aaron and Maggie fled the country to return to the US, where they still had family. The novel opens with this mysterious man setting foot on Willa’s home turf, and an instant yet forbidden attraction develops between them.
From this novel I learned about Amish and Mennonite traditions, at least from the sects portrayed here, and the author included terms in Pennsylvania Deitsch which were always rendered in italics so it was distracting to encounter them within the text. Since Aaron had fled the church and wanted nothing more to do with religion, he was not a suitable beau for Willa. The two however share an unexpected kiss which then propels Willa almost immediately to want to run off and elope. Remember, there are only 202 pages so action hops at a rapid clip and we go from a kiss to a lovestruck young woman who is prepared to up sticks and leave with Aaron, who is in reality still a virtual stranger.
The ending is predictable–I could see it coming with many pages still to go–when Willa hires a trusty matchmaker to find a husband who would be more suitable for her. Whom do you think the matchmaker selects?
Compared to the pornographic scenes in The Christmas Tree Farm, this novel only had a couple furtive kisses and hand-holding to deal with, which made it practically a platonic romance. What a disparate pair of romances! The Christmas content wasn’t as strong either, thus out of the four Christmas novels I have read so far this season, this one ranks last for Christmas content. I realize that in both Amish and Mennonite traditions, one does not encounter Santa, decorations and presents at Christmas, as the holiday is celebrated in a more solemn fashion.