Your main cry may be "Is there romance?

Does this book have the famous triangles of other fiction books!"

Ah-h! There's my reason to do romance differently; because everyone else writes romance!

(I REALLY don't care for kits, do you?).

Once I decided to write this book to suit my own tastes and change all the rules about romance I had great fun.

Ruthe is a matchmaker, and very much interested in a good husband and a family. However, she has vowed to be busy about God's business and to let Him choose her future husband. So she fights off all the men who approach her with romantic intentions. There's Ross, the tease, and Lloyd, who worships her, and Dr. Davie, who amuses her, and Peter, whom she gives away, and the police officers... (I'm biting my tongue! I don't want to spoil your reading of it!)

The pressure builds in this book. And – it will continue! The next book will be saturated with romance! (Everybody is going to comment on that! Whether they read it or not – EVERYONE will have an opinion on it by then)!

What About the Conflict?

Lest you are scoffing, "this is all PollyAnna stuff. Doesn't sound like anything really bad happens. No conflict - no story."

Ruthe deals with some serious conflicts here, on more than one level. There are her fears and naivety to overcome first of all, then the very real taunts and hindrances of Satan. These may seem small or a joke to one who is not a Believer in Christ, but can shipwreck many a Christian.

That's not all. She overcomes a strangler, witnesses a murder, and is kidnapped, but that all pales compared to the over all conflict throughout the book with her own conscience as Ruthe gradually realizes that she has been deceptive and needs to do some confessing and changing of her own. Only someone who has ever come to that point knows what a big climatic point that is in your life.

Have you been there? Then you'll know why this becomes a pivotal turning point in Ruthe's life.

(Truth is, you won't get the full, maximum impact until the next book. This Ruthe is like a multi-faceted diamond. The more you look the more you'll discover).

Ethnic Flavour – Mennonite Touches

When I was growing up I read lots of books, but I didn't find any that featured my own ethnic background, and because it takes one to run one down, I heard mostly the negative aspects.

In my adult years, researching my roots, I've come to appreciate my ethnic background much more, so I've decided to weave a bit of that into the book. Not enough to overpower the story, but to honour my beloved grandmother, who was a godly example to me, and to show other Mennonite young people that we have nothing to be ashamed of. Our Low German, or Plaut Deutsch, is not a dirty language.

Ruthe is not a generic heroine, so why should she not have some ethnic colour and background? We all do. Some are just not aware of their heritage yet.

You don't have to speak the language to get the drift of the phrases that pass between Ruthe and her Grosz'mama. What is more, they are all explained in the footnotes at the bottom of each page wherever they happen.

Rose Garden

Whether you are a gardener or not, you are likely enough of a romantic to enjoy Ruthe's idealistic way of seeing her private prayer walks at dawn - or whenever she can fit them in - to walking and talking with the Lord Jesus in an imaginary garden of paths and rose hedges, arbours and love seats. She doesn't talk about it often because she is afraid people will not understand or make fun of this. But it is symbolic in her mind of her sacred relationship with one who is her God, her Saviour, and her dearest Friend and Confidant. Only here does she feel fully free to be her real self.

In this garden she and her Friend Jesus, discuss her other friends, whom she fancies to be various colours and types of roses. Since she is afraid to tell her family about her friends in the city, they are her secret roses.

Read Ruthe's Secret Roses, and you'll want to try such private garden dates too. You'll be amazed at how much you'll become like Ruthe. She is going to grow on you! <smile> You've got to make the effort for those appointments though. They don't easily come unbidden.

Have You Got Writing Dreams?

If you are idealistic, and imaginative, I'll bet you have thought about writing a book yourself. Watch out for Phyllis Shulton in this story. In the end you may wish you could find a woman like her in your real life to guide you too.

For any or a number of the above reasons,

you want to buy this novel right now!

Besides,

* You don't have to get dressed to go out to shop for it

* You don't have to wait for it to come in the mail

* You order it by credit card, download it in 8 minutes more,