Spring’s Gentle Promise
Seasons of the Heart – Book IV

by Janette Oke

      Josh Jones is a real farmer at last, because Grandpa and Uncle Charlie have made over the farm to him.  He dreams of what he will do with the money if the crop brings in a good price – how about buying a motorcar?  But sharing the house with two girls has its price too, as Josh discovers when a good-looking local man comes calling.  If he doesn’t decide whether he wants Mary or Matilda soon he might be left single…
 
In the final installment of this heart-warming and life affirming series, Josh is fully grown up and taking charge of his life.  He writes simply, briefly but eloquently about the joys and woes of farming, courting, being a parent, and belonging to a family and shares it all with us in a way that makes it all seem very immediate.  His faith is tested many times when hardship comes, but somehow God always has a way of showing him the right path and things don’t look so bad.  Times change externally as the motor car enters people’s lives and the world outside touches the often isolated-seeming world Josh and his friends inhabit.  I’ll be sorry not to have the pleasure of reaching for a fifth volume about the Jones family, but there is something about these books that stays with the reader for some time after the last page has been read.  Maybe it is the excellent pacing of the books, the immediacy of having such a lively narrator, or the way Josh’s faith (and the support of his family and friends) brings him through even the darkest times of his life.  Highly recommended.