Book Review: Courting Miss Amsel (Kim Vogel Sawyer)

Courting Miss Amsel by Kim Vogel Sawyer

When Edythe Amsel gets her first teaching assignment in Walnut Hill, Nebraska, she is excited. Now she can prove to her father and her siblings that she can teach! Edythe has great intentions of opening a whole new world of discovery to the students in the small town. But it doesn’t take long before she realizes that the parents of her young charges don’t necessarily agree with her “newfangled” methods of teaching.

Edythe finds a friend in her landlady, Mrs. Kinsley, and in Joel Townsend and his young nephews. Eventually she realizes that she feels more than friendship for Joel, but also does not feel that she could marry him as that would mean taking care of his nephews. Having been forced to raise her own siblings, as her mother died when Edythe was 14, she doesn’t want to, once again, raise someone else’s children. She decides that her best bet is to leave Walnut Hill at the end of her year-long contract, because she knows if she doesn’t, she is going to have trouble controlling her heart.

Will things work out between Joel and Edythe? Or will they go their separate ways for ever.

I enjoyed this book! The storyline was engaging and the characters so real. I felt like I was right there in the little town of Walnut  Hill with Edythe, experiencing the frustration of the parents when they did not agree with her teaching methods, and experiencing Edythe’s frustration when she couldn’t get the parents to see why her methods were important. I would recommend this book and hope to read more books by Kim Vogel Sawyer soon!

**I received this book from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for an honest review.**