The Winnowing Season winnows more than just plants

     Just as Book One in Cindy Woodsmall's Amish Vines and Orchards series was a real page turner and a book easy to fall in love with so was Book Two The Winnowing Season a well written book that was hard to put down.  The reader can look forward to reading about the same step off the page characters he or she already fell in love with in the first book A Season for Tending and to the continued saga of them as they work to make up for what was lost in the end of that last book, but unlike the first book there are more strains from within the relationships that make for a more painful read.

     Cindy Woodsmall's skill in setting a scene, plot, relationship, and letting her characters take on life is still there so this is a good book.  However, this book is similar to the heart-breaking Book Two of other series.  She sets up the reader for book three while bringing the pain in her characters up from a low simmer to a full blown raging boil.  Mysteries are set up to, hopefully, be explained and resolved in the next book and there are many opportunities for the reader to yell his or her advice at the characters as they choose their actions and each deal with their personal dilemmas, demons, and prejudices in the ways that they choose.

     What appeals perhaps the most besides the realness of the characters is the family love.  The family love is there for siblings and sibling-in-laws of course, but what is also wonderful is that the characters find they do not have to be related by blood or law to come to carry and nurture that same familial love.  Truly a good, if sometimes painful, read.  Hats off to Cindy Woodsmall.  And now it is time to wait with abated breath for the delivery of the third installment of Amish Vines and Orchards.  Drive quickly, postman, or in honor of these characters: Ride swiftly postman.