relzreviewz.com Character Spotlight ~ Tricia Goyer’s Lydia Wyse

Character Spotlight ~ Tricia Goyer’s Lydia Wyse

Meet a former Amish book editor in

Tricia Goyer’s

Amish romance

The Promise Box

Zondervan

The Story

Every year, young Amish men descend on the cozy little town of West Kootenai, Montana, arriving in the spring to live there for six months and receive “resident” status for the hunting season in the fall. They arrive as bachelors, but go home with brides!

In The Promise Box, the second book of bestselling author Tricia Goyer’s Seven Brides for Seven Bachelors series, Lydia Wyse, a book editor from Seattle who grew up Amish, returns to the small community of West Kootenai, Montana to give comfort to her father after her mother’s death. She is drawn back to the familiar Amish ways after finding her mother’s most precious possession, a Promise Box of prayers and scripture. What her publisher sees, though, is an opportunity for a sensational “tell-all” book about the Amish.

Lydia soon finds herself falling in love with Amish bachelor Gideon Hooley. She wants nothing more than to forget her past and look forward to a future as an Amish bride. Will the pain of her childhood—and her potential betrayal of her community—keep her from committing her whole heart?

Enjoy meeting Lydia

Brief physical description

Lydia is petite with red hair that she tucks under her kapp. She has freckles on her nose.

Resembles…

Emma Stone!

Strengths and weaknesses

Lydia has closed her heart off to the Amish community. She’s been hurt in the past so she has left the community. Her strengths are that even though she’s left the Amish she carries so much of their strengths and beliefs within her.

Quirk (if any)

She has a quick tongue that sometimes gets her into trouble.

Your inspiration for the character

I loved the character of Skeeter in the movie The Help. If you put her in an Amish kapp and try to force her to mind her own business then you’ll have Lydia.

Background to the story

I’m a person who journals many times a week, and I always wonder what my kids will think when they come across those journals some day. I share favorite Scriptures, prayers, worries, needs, hopes, and ideas. It’s quite a collection! My kids know me as mom, but I have a feeling that they’ll know me on even a deeper level when they read what I’ve written just for myself—things I don’t easily share. I also wonder if the things I write will some day impact the spiritual lives of those who follow.

This thought spurred my idea for The Promise Box. I pictured a young woman who was adopted and feels like there is no place that she truly belongs. Yet through the notes in her adoptive mother’s Promise Box, she learns more about her mother’s faith and her own life. Lydia truly discovers who she is through reading her mother’s words on the page.

Thanks Tricia!