Preview
  • Mary's Christmas Goodbye

  • An Amish Romance
  • By: Linda Byler
  • Narrated by: Emily Caldwell
  • Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (663 ratings)

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Mary's Christmas Goodbye

By: Linda Byler
Narrated by: Emily Caldwell
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Publisher's summary

Mary Stoltzfus is 30 years old, splashed with freckles, and unmarried. In her Amish world, that qualifies her to be called an old maid. She is living her quiet schoolteacher life in the Lancaster County Amish community when she gets a surprising invitation in the mail one day. Would she come to Montana to teach? Of course not, she decides, fully at home in Eastern Pennsylvania, where she can go out to eat in dozens of restaurants, do her laundry in a newfangled washer that's powered by compressed air, and hire a driver if she wants to go farther than her horse and buggy can comfortably take her. What is there to do in Montana? she sniffs. But soon she becomes annoyed by the cracks in the floor of her one-room schoolhouse, the noise of the nearby road, and the two eighth-grade boys who try to make toilet-paper cigarettes and nearly burn down the privy.

Before long, Mary is on Amtrak - "just to take care of her curiosity", she explains to her mother. She arrives at a desolate station and meets Arthur Bontrager, who had signed the invitation and has come to introduce her to Beaver Creek School, dirt roads, and the fancy shed where she would live. When she settles into this world of mountain ranges and pine-tree majesty, her old buried questions - about why no man had ever been her match - have come along to live with her. After she's injured by wild dogs on her walk home from school, Mary faces new questions. Is she weak if she accepts a Bouvier des Flandres dog from Arthur's friend? Who is the young woman in the photo at Arthur's house? And why does Mary suddenly care? Does she really belong back in Lancaster?

©2015 Linda Byler (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
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What listeners say about Mary's Christmas Goodbye

Average customer ratings
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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Great book

I throughly enjoyed this book. When you thought you knew what would happen it took you in a different direction. Good to see romance and love in the air. Loved it!

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3 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Good Story

The story was great. The narrator was excellent. The story drew me into the story.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great story

Loved the sweet story and how it took me to a peaceful place. I nice respite from this crazy world.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Touching Christmas story

Loved this sweet story of an inwardly beautiful Amish woman finding happiness. Really enjoyed the beautiful Montana descriptions.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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sweet modern romance

I liked the whole story. an honest modern teacher set in an Amish setting.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Mary's Christmas goodbye

This book was a very interesting and delightful story to listen too!
The story of Mary put me in the Christmas Spirit. ⛄❄ 🌲

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent

This was a feel good story that was realistic. I highly recommend listening to this story.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Montana Move

JWright
I have enjoyed other works by Ms Byler as she presents narratives of a group of people about whom I am interested. This story describes the hardships people encounter in the Pacific Northwest. Ms Byler includes Biblical truths, which I appreciate.
No vulgar language or graphic violence has been added.

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  • Overall
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Loved the book!!

I loved this book! I’d go to sleep listening to this book! The narrator did the book justice…totally! I want an Arthur!! lol I thought oh it will be just a little pleasant book. I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t want it to end. Bravo to the author and narrator!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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2nd time

I loved it so much I needed to revisit it. Its just perfectly wonderful! Will do it again next Christmas.

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