title: Courting Emma
author: MacLaren, Sharlene
description: A Divine Plan
  Twenty-eight-year-old Emma has built a barricade around her heart to survive the pain of growing up with her alcoholic father, Ezra. As she runs Emma's Boardinghouse, she plays host to an array of unkempt, earthy characters while trying to maintain a protective emotional distance from people. No one has succeeded in getting to know the beautiful yet steely edged proprietress. That is, not until Little Hickman Creek's handsome new pastor, Jonathan Atkins, takes up residence in the boardinghouse and begins to dismantle her carefully controlled world...
  
  A Struggle to Forgive
  Clinging desperately to her stubborn ways and unable to forgive her father, Emma begins receiving letters from a mysterious sender who somehow knows about her and has secret information about Ezra's past. Amidst all this, she is surprised -- and unsettled -- by the attentions of both Jonathan and Billy, the smooth-talking traveling showman.
  
  A Miraculous Love
  When the town of Little Hickman Creek is stunned by an unexpected turn of events, will Emma risk removing her protective shell to accept the love of God -- and the love of a man?