Twenty years ago, Cora Pooler, a young Amish woman, abandoned a newborn child in the village of Wander Lane. Her deed was discovered and reported to the sheriffand then to Bishop Herrfort. Because Cora was unwilling to repent and would not explain the circumstances of her actions, she was shunned. In Cora Pooler, author Dottie Rexford tells the story of Coras return to Wander Lane after twenty years of living in the English world. Not only is she faced with finding out what happened to her baby, but she vows to resolve the mystery of her sisters untimely death. Will Aaron welcome her back? Is he married or still free? What about Daniel in her English world? Can she forget him? Does she really want to forget him? Cora knows she needs to decide whether she is part of the Amish world or the one she created for herself among the English. Cora Pooler is a compelling story of a divided heart, aching to find truth and resolution. Rexford captures the longings and emotions that belong to all who seek deep and rich relationships, all who doubt and seek answers, and all who seek to be whole.

Ten years gone, Cora Pooler returns, a second time, to the Amish community where she was raised. She continues to be under the ban, shunned for abandoning a child thirty years before. Arriving in Wander Lane, she discovers her sister, Lily, has been buried in unsanctiffed ground; her sister, Violet, has married Cora's former lover, Aaron; and unbeknownst to her Amish family, the abandoned child is living within the Amish community. With Sheriff Parker's help, and though thwarted by the Amish community's reluctance to accept Cora's presence in their fellowship, Cora attempts to discover the reason for Lily's unseemly burial place, and the reason the abandoned baby, her placement whereabouts supposedly unknown, is now an adult woman living in Wander Lane.

The Dexter register 1904

There are moments in life when joy, peace, and purpose are ripped from your heart and soul, and you are left with nothing. When Bethany's husband, Hadley, dies, she stands in that place. She is empty. Having a tenuous relationship with God and determined to find her way out of sorrow and to become whole again, Bethany searches for a rescuing rope of acceptance and strength from her past experiences and an unwavering pursuit to grasp the fullness of God. Her journey winds through memories of a mother's death and the transport from a loving home into the hands of a stern and authoritarian grandmother, a weak grandfather, and a favored cousin Clarissa. She remembers her first taste of love-James. Young love. Hidden love with disastrous results. And she brings forth from a deep and almost forgotten place in her heart, memories of the tender stories of Jesus her mother told while they sat together after dark in her mother's rocker on the lawn. She envisions the stars they named. The songs they sang. Their songs in the night. Pocketed pieces of God. Complications arise. A returned jealous and dying cousin. James. A former abused classmate. A tormented mentor. Will Bethany survive and find joy, or will she drown in a tumultuous river of grief? In a compelling story of a broken woman, Dottie Rexford captures the anguish and yearnings of all who struggle to regain a sense of strength, peace, and truth within their hearts.