Sweet and beautiful Bianca has no shortage of admirers, but her father insists that she will not marry until her older sister, Katharina, marries first. Bianca’s suitors persuade fortune-seeker Petruchio to court her and are willing to pay for any costs involved. Petruchio marries Katharina and carries her off to his country house with his servant Grumio. Petruchio intends to ensure the shrewish Katharina becomes a submissive wife by denying her food, sleep and her new clothes. Katharina is tamed. They return to Padua where Lucentio has won Bianca. At a banquet they wager on who has the most obedient wife. Each wife is given commands but only Katharina obeys. But she doesn’t stop there. She also lectures everyone else on the importance of wifely submission.
Now imagine The Taming of the Shrew meets an Amish girl, and you have Leslie Gould’s latest creative endeavor — Courting Cate.
About Courting Cate
Book 1 in The Courtships of Lancaster County series.
I am a fairly new fan of Amish fiction. To be honest, while I have always been somewhat attracted to the Amish lifestyle, I imagined Amish novels would be rather boring, filled with obedient children, playing with corn husk dolls, speaking Pennsylvania Dutch, while Amish ladies cook and quilt, and Amish men farm and make furniture. It just didn’t seem very exciting to me. Thankfully, authors like Leslie Gould have convinced me otherwise. And characters like Cate and Betsy are why.In this Amish fiction novel, subtly based on The Taming of the Shrew, older sister Cate has had the responsibility of mothering younger sister, Betsy, since their mother died when Betsy was a baby. Betsy grows up to be quite pretty (though bit whiny and manipulative) and has most of the eligible bachelors in town swooning, while Cate would rather read than be courted.
So their father, in his infinite wisdom creates a mandate — Betsy cannot be courted until Cate is betrothed. This is a problem since Cate has pushed away most every bachelor in Paradise. That is until Pete shows up and goes to work for her father.
At first she believes him to also be interested in Betsy, but soon he is courting Cate.
But are his intentions pure?
This book takes all kinds of twists and turns, as we learn more about the hearts of these characters, and just when you think you know what’s going to happen next, something unexpected happens. It is a real honest-to-goodness page-turner. I didn’t want to put it down!
About the Author:
