The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill by Julie Klassen is the first book of Tales from Ivy Hill trilogy. This is Christian historical fiction.

What happens when your husband dies unexpectedly, and you unexpectedly inherit his family’s inn? Your mother-in-law moves in, resumes the duties she once held, and if you are Jane Bell, you retreat into the home you shared with your husband and don’t cause waves. Jane’s imperfectively created life of no-waves is turned on its head when she receives the news that the inn in danger of being repossessed because of debts she was unaware of.

This deviates from the Christian genre norm of romance being a key component of the story. There is a thread of romance, but it is a very minor aspect of the story. Instead, this is a novel which focuses on Jane, the small hamlet of Ivy Hill, and the inhabitant’s that are dependent on the inn’s survival. Jane is quickly forced out of her sheltered existence and out into the world. Can she pay-off the debt, figure out what happened to her husband, and integrate into Ivy Hill?

I thoroughly enjoyed this first novel in the series. The characters are very well written, and you could easily sit down with a cup of tea and spend the afternoon chatting to many of these characters. Wanting to spend quality time with characters is always the mark of an excellent book for me and this was no exception. Jane finding her voice and sticking up for herself is so refreshing.