DAYBREAK is book one in the Days of Redemption series. Here you will meet the Keim family. While cleaning out the storage area above their barn, deep family secrets about the Keim grandparents are revealed. Neither are willing to talk about it. The children and the grandchildren are clearly upset, and to add to the stress, the family learns their dad, Peter, is also hiding something! There have been too many secrets, for too long. Will this destroy their family bond? Will the community forgive them if they find out the truth? Will Peter and Marie's love stay strong as they face Peter's secret?

Viola Keim, Peter and Marie's daughter, works at the Daybreak retirement home. She becomes close to Atle Swartz, one of the residents, and learns his son is a missionary in Nicaragua. Atle enjoys reading the letters he gets from his son, and he reads each and every one of them to Viola. Some of them, many times! Viola doesn't think it is right that Edward put his Dad in a retirement home so he could go where ever he wants to in the world. But, when Edward shows up to visit his Dad, Viola realizes how wrong she is about Edward. As she gets to know Edward better, she finds herself falling for him. He feels the same way about Viola, but the missionaries he works for, ask him to leave everything behind and go to Belize for five years. What will he do? Can he leave his father? What about Viola? They only just met, but his feelings for her run deep. Does she feel the same way?

DAYBREAK by Shelley Shepard Gray is a great start to the new Days of Redemption series. You will laugh, maybe shed some tears, be swept up in a growing romance, but most of all you will be fascinated with one very unique Amish family; a family that sure looks perfect and ordinary to outsiders except sometimes the "simple life" is not so simple after all. I'm so happy I have the second book, Ray of Light, in my possession. Many questions were left unanswered in DAYBREAK, and I'm anxious to see how the grandparents handle their secret, and if they ever reveal the details of it. I truly enjoyed every minute of DAYBREAK and was sad that it ended, but I can't wait to read more by Shelley Shepard Gray!

Book Summary

In this close-knit Amish family, nothing is as perfect as it seems . . .

When Viola Keim starts working at a nearby Mennonite retirement home, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with resident Atle, whose only living relative, son Edward, is living as a missionary in Nicaragua. Viola understands the importance of mission work, but she can't imagine leaving her father in the hands of strangers. Even though her family is New Order Amish, it's not the Amish way, and though she doesn't know Ed, she judges him for abandoning his father.

But when Ed surprises his father with a visit, Viola and Ed both discover an attraction they never expected. Despite her feelings, choosing Ed would mean moving to a far-off country and leaving her family behind. She can't do that. Her twin sister, Elsie, is going blind and will need someone to care for her all her life. Her family is reeling with the recent discovery that her grandmother hid her past as an Englischer. Her father seems forgetful and distracted—and to be harboring some secrets of his own.

Does Viola dare leave them all behind and forge her own life? Or will family ties mean her one chance at love slips away?