An Amish settlement in Ohio has run afoul of a law requiring
their children to attend public school. Caleb Bender and his
neighbors are arrested for neglect, with the state ordering the
children be placed in an institution. Among them are Caleb’s
teenage daughter, Rachel, and the boy she has her eye on, Jake
Weaver. Romance blooms between the two when Rachel helps Jake
escape the children’s home.
Searching for a place to relocate his family where no such laws
apply, Caleb learns there’s inexpensive land for sale in Mexico, a
place called Paradise Valley. Despite rumors of instability in the
wake of the Mexican revolution, the Amish community decides this is
their answer. And since it was Caleb’s idea, he and his family will
be the pioneers. They will send for the others once he’s
established a foothold and assessed the situation.
Caleb’s daughters are thrown into turmoil. Rachel doesn’t want to
leave Jake. Her sister, Emma, who has been courting Levi Mullet,
fears her dreams of marriage will be dashed. Miriam has never had a
beau and is acutely aware there will be no prospects in
Mexico.
Once there, they meet Domingo, a young man and guide who takes a
liking to Miriam, something her father would never approve. While
Paradise Valley is everything they’d hoped it would be, it isn’t
long before the bandits start giving them trouble, threatening to
upset the fledgling Amish settlement, even putting their lives in
danger. Thankfully no one has been harmed so far, anyway.
Dale Cramer, bestselling author of the critically acclaimed novel Levi's Will, was the second of four children born to a runaway Amishman and a sharecropper's daughter. True to his Amish ancestry, he skipped college and became an electrician, yet the thought was never far from his mind that someday he would like to write. Dale lives in McDonough, Georgia, with his family.