Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Amish Quiltmaker’s Unexpected Baby in which Esther gets quite a shock.

Esther Zook had four hundred and thirty-five reasons to run screaming from the house and never come back.

But she wasn’t really a screamer, and she’d certainly never been much of a runner. She found it completely incomprehensible that people actually ran for fun. But most of them were Englischers, and she’d never been able to understand much of what Englischers did, so her confusion was expected.

Instead of screaming or banging her head against the refrigerator, Esther stood in the middle of her tiny kitchen and read Ivy’s letter over and over again. After all Esther had done for her sister, this was how Ivy repaid her? The world had turned upside down, topsy-turvy in a matter of seconds.

And then the buplie, the baby, started crying.

Esther was going to throw up.

And Esther wasn’t a thrower-upper. She’d never thrown up in her life, even that time Grossmater made her try cow’s tongue at the state fair.

Esther growled and tore Ivy’s letter in half, then in half again. Then in half again and again. Then she scrunched all the pieces together in her fist, made a raggedy paper ball, and, with a great heave, threw the ball across the kitchen. It landed in the only potted plant in the house, caught in the long, feathery leaves of her fern like a bug in a spider’s web.

You can preorder The Amish Quiltmaker’s Unexpected Baby on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It will also be available in stores at Walmart on February 23. Enjoy!