The First Love

By: Beverly Lewis

Narrated by: Christina Moore, Melissa Hurst

Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

In the summer of 1951, 18-year-old Maggie Esh is in need of some hope. Sweet-spirited and uncommonly pretty despite struggling with a debilitating illness, she is accustomed to being treated kindly by the young men of her Old Order Amish church district. Yet no one but Jimmy Beiler ever asks her out, and she always declines, certain he only pities her.  

To make matters worse, Dat has recently remarried, less than a year after Maggie's mother died. And while her stepmother is kind, she's much younger than Mamm, and she simply doesn't understand Maggie or her illness the way Mamm did.  

Strong in her faith, Maggie has been taught to accept her lot in life as God's will. But with declining health, an unsettled family situation, and few future prospects, any sense of hope seems elusive. When tent revival meetings come to the area, Maggie attends out of curiosity, but the words of the evangelist begin to stir something deep inside her.  

Dare she hope for a brighter future?  

©2018 Beverly M. Lewis, Inc. (P)2018 Recorded Books

A bit boring

Felt like this book was a bit boring and spent to much time on Maggie’s illness. So much small detail kind of dragged you a long. Love her books though!

Great story

I love the book. It is inspiring and heartfelt. Looking forward to hearing more like this

Suspense

One didn’t know until the end how the marriages would be.
Good story well written

Boring.

Repeat of vegetables and fruits in season. plot is slow and lacks movement through the story. I quit after chapter 10 due to repeat over and over of family discord.

Narrator detracts from story

A narrator paints the picture and tells the story through her voice. Rather than speaking with a Pennsylvania Deutch accent, it sounds more like New York.

They should have let Melissa Hurst do the entire narration.

Enjoyed listening!!

Well done narration and well written book. Beverly Lewis does a great job of describing life in the Amish community.

First Love

This is my first audible by Mrs Lewis. I enjoyed the storyline which was one of hopelessness (debilitating disease) to one of hope ( love and family). Listening about going to tent revivals reminded me of my own childhood revivals.

blessed

this author & reader are continual blessing. Compaired to other authors & readers kinda pale in comparison. oh some are ok but not as well. thank you again for another blessed audio book

A good Amish story

This audio book was entertaining and a very good story. If you like Amish stories you will enjoy this one. The reader was a bad choice in my opinion.

A nice Amish story

I was okay with the story. It did not flesh out the family dynamics such as mentioning "her sisters and the little ones." Never did get any detail if Maggie's little brothers (or sisters other than Grace and Miriam) but we heard the name Stephen once. Was he the extent of the "little ones?" Not a good transition from courting at age 18 to a bithday party when in her 50's. Also the narration had trouble with German pronunciation of 'ie' vs 'ei' sounds and this was distracting.