The Refuge

May 1, 2019
Walter and Darcie Godwin join the Shaker village of Harmony Hill (based on Kentucky's Pleasant Hill Shaker Community) to avoid the cholera epidemic, but three short months later, Walter is dead after a steamboat explosion, and Darcie is expecting his child. Flynn Keller lost his wife two years ago after a fall from a horse and is now struggling to raise his strong-willed young daughter, Leatrice, with the help of his recently widowed father-in-law, Silas. When Silas remarries, Flynn brings Leatrice to the Shaker village for schooling while he builds a house of their own. There, Leatrice assists Darcie in caring for her daughter and an abandoned baby. Although grateful for a place to live, Darcie has not embraced the Shaker ways and still longs for a family. Could Flynn and Leatrice be the answer to her prayers? Readers will be fascinated by Gabhart's knowledge of Shaker culture in this gentle romance, the eighth in her Shaker Books series, which can also be recommended to fans of Beverly Lewis' Amish novels looking for something new.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)