Michelle Buonfiglio, Romance: B(u)Y the Book, wnbc entertainment

HUNTRESS

Author: Annette Blair
Title - The Butterfly Garden (April 2005)

The story begins in Walnut Creek, Ohio, 1883. Amishwoman Sara Lapp, has all but been shunned for studying with "the English" local doctor, Dr. Jordan Marks, to become a midwife. After months of waiting, she is called to tend the birth of her best friend, Abby. However, upon arriving, Sara finds Abby has already died in childbirth. Abby's husband, "Mad" Adam Zuckerman, did not want Sara to help Abby deliver the baby. He wants Sara to take his four daughters, including the new born, home with her to raise.

Adam is a self-appointed outcast. He keeps everyone at a distance. He dares not love anyone, including Abby and his children. Adam's childhood had been far from happy. In fact, Adam never recalls smiling even once in his entire life. Adam fears that he has too much of his father in him and he cannot have his children around him without Abby to protect them should his father's blood prove true. It is best for him, and his children, that they be raised with someone who could give them the love they so desperately need. Someone like Sara.

When a drunken Adam falls from a barn loft Sara moves in to tend him, and she brings his girls. Then the Bishop and the Elders take a stand. They must marry or they, and the children, would be shunned. Sara knows there is something good in Adam. There has to be or Abby would never have fallen in love with him and married him. Sara has hope of drawing it out of him. She hopes to heal him. If not, she will love and raise the children as her own.

Unexpected help, and trouble, arrives when Lena (Adam's mother) and Emma (Adam's quiet sister) knock on the door. Adam believed them to have died long ago, another lie from his father. Now Sara has help with the children and can do her midwife duties without worrying about the children. However, Adam, Lena, and Emma have much to resolve. Sara must teach everyone in her new home that there is a time for everything under God's heaven. Now is the time for healing. Yet as Sara teaches those she loves to bloom, they teach her much more in return.

***** Fans of the TV show "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" will adore this novel! Sara came across to me as almost a mirror image of Dr. Quinn. She is strong when need be (stubborn), stands up for those in need (sharp tongued), and has much love to give everyone. She also must deal with the Amish ordnung (rules) which makes everything near impossible. I found myself cheering her on to victory.  The author, Annette Blair, has a real writing talent. She inserts tiny things that the reader does not immediately notice, but makes the reader come to care for the characters as if they were kin. You may need tissues nearby at some points of the story. Another award winner that I cannot recommend highly enough. *****  Detra Fitch

The Library Journal

Harriet Klausner--Amazon

ROMANCE REVIEWS TODAY

THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN - Annette Blair
Five Star
ISBN: 1-59414-314-5
April 2005
Historical Romance

Walnut Creek, Ohio, 1833

Spinster Sara Lapp's acceptance by the Amish community teeters on shaky ground. Because her one-room cabin lay on the outskirts, she was incorporated into a new community when the old one was divided, and that doesn't help matters at all. She's too outspoken and bossy for potential suitors, and the elders disapprove of her studies with the local English (non-Amish) doctor. At fifteen, Sara lost her whole family. Her mother and brother died in childbirth, and her father was killed in an ice storm while going for a doctor. Sara's one ambition is to become a midwife and learn everything there is to know to save babies and mothers. It's the only thing that will give meaning to her lonely life.

Sara made one friend since the division, a sweet woman named Abby, married to Mad Adam Zuckerman. Abby once assured Sara that Adam is a different man inside from the one he shows the world with his stern face and gruff behavior, but Sara is the only one in town who dares to stand up to him. Abby is close to term with her fourth child in as many years when Adam calls Sara to the farm. She berates Adam for risking Abby's life with too many children too close together with words that will haunt her for a long time to come. It's already too late to try to save Abby, and only she and Adam knew it was Abby who insisted on trying again to give Adam a son, and only they knew the terrible way Adam was raised and his fear of being like his father. Sara has no idea why Adam insists on giving her Lizzie, Katie, Priscilla, and the new baby Hannah to raise.

Sara agrees to take the children for a short time, hoping her heart won't break when she has to give them back. Adam spends his time alone trying to drown his grief in alcohol, but then he falls from a ladder and breaks an arm, some ribs and his thighbone. Sara and the girls move in to nurse him. There follows a battle of wills between two individuals well matched in stubbornness, not to mention the battles they wage against their own feelings. Adam wants to drive Sara and the girls away -- they are tearing him up inside -- while a part of him wishes Sara would come closer. Sara's goal is to make Adam love his children. So the days go on with both tempers bristling, but sometimes Adam is tempted to do what he never has in his life...to laugh. Then the bishop gives Adam and Sara an ultimatum, get married or be shunned by the community.

THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN tells an exceptionally moving tale of life and love in a community apart from the mainstream but with humanity in common with the rest of us. Sara is totally sympathetic as a heroine; who could help but love her with her feisty, yet caring and giving nature. Adam, on the other hand, evokes as much or more sympathy, but you'd still like to give him a good shaking. Two characters from the past show up that test him even more. Yet, when faced with emergencies, Adam rises to true heroism. The two protagonists face many conflicts, internal and external, that give richness and suspense to THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN.

Adam and Sara are the subjects of deep characterizations surrounded by other folk who add greatly to the success of THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN. The children are much like children anywhere in their individuality, a mix of seriousness, high spirits, and whining. They are the occasion of many heartwarming scenes. Adam manages to have one good friend in Roman Byler who, along with Doctor Marks, is instrumental in bringing Adam and Sara together. I hope to see them both again.

I've enjoyed Annette Blair's other books, especially her Rogues Club trilogy in her Regency Historicals, but for heroic, meaty fare, I strongly suggest you try her American Amish works, THEE, I LOVE (still available) and THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN. They aren't connected in any way other than their settings and by their excellence.  Jane Bowers, RRT

 A ROMANCE REVIEW

Romance Reader at Heart

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN boasts a love story as memorable as the two characters who share it.

Ms. Blair not only captures the essence of a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, she delves deep into the romantic couple to create two full-bodied, multi-layered, unique characters.

Pit a spunky, determined, passionate heroine with a gruff, cantankerous, emotionally crippled hero and the sparks are guaranteed to fly. Add a heavy dose of sexual tension and fireworks erupt. For all their bickering and the obstacles placed before them, Sara Lapp and Adam Zuckerman are perfect together—two halves of a whole. Adam might not recognize Sara as the wife of his heart, at first, but the reader will.

Ms. Blair writes beautiful, richly detailed characters. THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN's two lead characters practically leap from the pages of this Amish romance. This fast moving story works so well, for the most part, because these two fit together so
well—despite their different temperaments. Or maybe because of their differences.

Warm and witty, THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN is a wonderfully touching story. I hesitate to call any story sweet—because of the sappy connotations—but this story is sweet. Without being sappy.

Beautifully written, this more-often-than-not amusing story is one I'd highly recommend. A top-notch read. A gifted writer.

This character-driven story is also peppered with some nicely sketched, interesting secondary characters. Two, maybe three, are just begging for their own story. Debbie Jett

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