Book excerpt: After writing her first painful week into the history books with her own blood, sweat and tears, Genevieve Patterson has had a change of heart and is finally ready to commit herself to spending the next five months at the farm on Harmony Hill. Her covert assignment, a 10,000-word essay on Ruby, the acclaimed Matchmaker of Niederbipp, is slow to take form, but not for a lack of trying. The distractions are many: from photographers, to difficult personalities, to intriguing historical discoveries. And despite the lamentable curse of her accident-prone nature, Genevieve knows she's got to buckle down and make some headway. But how does one sensitively and authentically write about eleven diverse individuals whose only apparent similarity is their shared dream of matrimonial bliss? And her assignment is only becoming more complicated as Genevieve recognizes that there's far more to this story than she ever could have imagined.