Unbreakable

December 24, 2012
Mehl continues her Road to Kingdom series, about a Mennonite community in Kansas, with a tale of a testing of faith. The action gets going quickly when young Mennonite Hope Kauffman is run off the road in her buggy, one in a string of incidents of harassment targeting religious people and churches in the area. As trouble escalates, the Mennonite community is torn between adherents of the religion’s teaching of nonviolence and advocates of a more vigorous response that includes armed patrols. Hope lives the dilemma, torn between her gentle fiancé Ebbie and attractive Jonathon Wiese, who organizes the patrols. Mehl has strengths: her premise is solid, she delivers on romantic tension and the physical attraction that can only be implied in Christian fiction, and the ending is satisfactory. Her dialogue could use work (“You must have some unresolved issues about Jonathon,” one of Hope’s Mennonite friends says), too many coincidences mar the suspense, and the eating-good-food narrative convention of Amish and Mennonite novels is overdone. But those who like gentle reads will enjoy this suspenseful variation on that theme.

February 15, 2013

Hope Kauffman has always been happy in the Mennonite town of Kingdom, KS, helping her father run his quilt shop. Recently, she accepted an engagement that her father arranged for her. Ebbie Miller is a kind, devout man and Hope knows that she'll have a good life with him. But the town's tranquility is upset when a charming young man, Jonathon Wiese, pushes for reform. When a church member is threatened, there is an even stronger drive for the town to arm itself. Hope is strongly opposed to the idea, but when more people are attacked she begins to question what she's been taught. VERDICT Like the preceding series title, Inescapable, this tale of suspense offers a colorful cast of characters, small-town drama, and a hint of romance. A sure bet for fans of Hannah Alexander.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2013
Mehl's second Road to Kingdom novel (Inescapable, 2012) brings her readers back to Kingdom, Kansas, a Mennonite town struggling to balance the tenets of faith with the ever-encroaching modern world. Hope Kauffman is wholly satisfied with her Mennonite way of life, but she begins to question church doctrine regarding violence as it becomes clear someone is targeting the people of Kingdom. Two men represent opposite sides of Hope's wavering ideals. Ebbie Miller, Hope's fianc'e and best friend, firmly opposes the use of violence under any circumstance, choosing instead to have faith in God. Jonathon Wiese believes that God gave people the ability to defend themselves. Hope must confront her feelings on doctrine, the outside world, and the men in her life as she becomes a target of the violence. Mehl's take on the middle road that Mennonites choose to walk is both engaging and informative. She is able to respectfully portray a struggle foreign to most readers while at the same time providing that romantic drama readers of her prior fiction know and love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)