Review: A Faith of Her Own by Kathleen Fuller

Still Not Sold on Amish Fiction

I went through a phase of reading Amish romance by Beverley Lewis about ten years ago, but gave up after realising that they seemed to be rehashing variations of the same plot over and over (and the one which had a different plot ended up having the same “twist” as the last of Michael Phillips’s Stonewycke books, which meant I found it too predictable).

Since then I’ve read a few mysteries set in Amish country by authors such as Mindy Starns Clark and Vanetta Chapman, and I enjoyed those more because the focus of the plot was the mystery rather than romance. I’ve also read some other novels by authors who mostly write Amish fiction, such as Anna Schmidt, Beth Wiseman and Beth Vogt, and have found the quality variable. At their best, they are as good as any authors writing in the Christian market. At their worst, they have stupid cliché characters, predictable plots and uninspired writing.

I picked out A Faith of Her Own to review because I thought it was time I gave Amish fiction another chance, and because the plot sounded interesting. It appeared to have more of an emphasis on the faith elements than some Amish fiction I've read (this has been one thing which has always bugged me about Amish fiction: the notion that if an Amish teen chooses not to be baptised into the Amish church, he or she has rejected both God and family when actually all they’ve done is acknowledge there are other ways to serve God than through the Amish church).

Even Anna Mae made this point when considering whether she was going to join the church:

It’s not like I take my faith lightly. I’m not turning my back on God.”

The blurb says:

Ever since Anna Mae’s childhood friend Jeremiah left their Amish community, she’s questioned her own place in the Amish world.  The Amish life feels as if it’s closing in on her, and with her mother trying to set her up with potential suitors, Anna Mae feels trapped in a life she’s not sure she wants any more. But she’s never told anyone that she longs for a tiny taste of freedom—freedom that could be very costly.

When Jeremiah suddenly reappears in Middlefield to help his mentor, Yankee veterinarian Dr. Miller, new questions surface for Anna Mae,along with feelings she’d never fully acknowledged before.

As Anna Mae and Jeremiah rekindle their friendship, old feelings take on new meaning. Yet the question still lingers: What is God’s plan for her life? Should she stay, keeping loyal to her Amish family, or does God have a bigger plan—one that provides more freedom than she could imagine? The answers do not come easily, and the answer to God’s call may lie indifferent directions . . . for both of them.

Based on this I was expecting the main focus of the plot to be on Anna Mae and Jeremiah. It was and it wasn’t: there were also significant subplots about Jeremiah’s relationships with his father and brother, and his cousins and their horse farm. This was rather confusing at the beginning as the reader is introduced to a variety of characters with no understanding of how they are related to Anna Mae, to Jeremiah, or to the plot. Perhaps this would have been clearer if I’d read the earlier books in the series.

Anyway, once I worked out who was who, I enjoyed the book. The writing was solid but not outstanding (a bit too much backstory and telling at the beginning, and a lot of introspection throughout the story which slowed the pace). Despite this, I would have liked to have had more introspection from Anna Mae, as even at the end I didn’t feel I knew her as a character, or could understand why she’d made the decisions she had. In fact, I felt I knew Becka, Caleb and Amos better than either Anna Mae or Jeremiah.

My other problem was with the constant use of Deitsch (German). I don’t mind the occasional foreign word, especially when it’s a proper noun (Daed, for Dad) or a word that doesn’t have a straightforward English equivalent (like kapp, for the Amish headcovering).

But I found the constant use of simple Deitsch words like yes, no, and me to be intrusive because each time I got to one I had to stop reading to mentally translate the word, then reread the sentence to get the context right. It pulled me out of the story, and it didn’t feel natural (the people I know who speak two languages speak one or the other at any given time. They speak English to me, and English or their native language when talking amongst themselves. They don’t interject words from one language into another, and if they do use a word from their native language, it’s because they are asking for the English equivalent).

Overall I found A Faith of Her Own okay. I would have enjoyed it more if it had been more consistent with the blurb, either by focussing on Anna Mae and Jeremiah, or if the blurb had made clear that it was really the story of two related couples.

Will I read more Amish fiction from Kathleen Fuller? I don’t know. I liked the way A Faith of Her Own acknowledged that people have different Christian callings, and I especially liked the sensitive way the characters related to Amos (who has developmental difficulties), but overall? Better than most Amish fiction I've read, but ultimately forgettable. Quite simply, that isn't good enough.

Review: Promise to Cherish by Elizabeth Byler Younts

Compelling Historical Romance

I’m going to start by saying I’ve read quite a bit of Amish and Mennonite romance in the past, and haven’t enjoyed most of it. I find the heroines are generally immature, probably a result of young age and a lack of education. I find the books are often full of too-perfect characters living a romanticised a lifestyle that seems to value obedience to rules rather than salvation by grace. The fact the rules seem to differ between communities points to rules made by men rather than by God, and I’m sceptical any time a religion puts the rule of man above the Word of God. I’ve also been disappointed by the quality of writing in some of the books.

However, I get annoyed by readers and critics who write off an entire genre (e.g. Christian fiction) because of a few bad reads, so I do continue to read Amish fiction from time to time, although I tend to pick titles that look a little different than the standard romance—generally titles which include some non-Amish characters.

Promise to Cherish is one of these. It’s the second title in The Promise of Sunrise series (although it can easily be read as a standalone novel), and follows the stories of Christine Freeman, a nurse in a mental hospital in World War II America, and Eli Brenneman, a Conscientious Objector serving in the same hospital as part of the Civilian Public Service camp scheme.

The two meet and become friends, and when the war ends and Christine needs a place to live, Eli invites her back to Sunrise—which causes it’s own set of problems.

I liked the way that none of the characters were too-perfect caricatures, even the Amish. All the characters felt like real people facing difficult decisions that challenged their personal beliefs, and even though several of the characters had conflicting beliefs, both sides were examined respectfully.

I didn’t like the descriptions of the mental hospital, or the fact that not all the patients had psychiatric problems: one was a Down’s syndrome man, and another was a deaf-mute. Although unpleasant, the scenes were written sympathetically and I’m sure they were representative of conditions in a time where mental illness wasn’t so well understood by the medical profession or the general public, and where there simply wasn’t the manpower to give the people the care they deserved.

Overall, Promise to Cherish isn’t the standard wishy-washy Amish romance, but a novel raising some important issues, and one I certainly enjoyed reading.

One warning: don’t read the Amazon book description, or the book description on the author’s own website. Both give away significant plot details, one of which only happens at the climax of the novel. I think I wouldn’t have enjoyed this book nearly as much if I’d known what was coming.

Thanks to Howard Books and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Elizabeth Byler Younts at her website.

Review: A Plain Scandal by Amanda Flower

A Plain Scandal is the second Appleseed Creek Mystery, following A Plain Death, in which Chloe Humphrey investigated the death of the local Amish bishop, developed a crush in the handsome Timothy Troyer, and gained a new housemate, Becky, Timothy's sister.

In this sequel, the Amish of Appleseed Creek, Ohio, have appointed a new, stricter, bishop, the two hooligans who caused the trouble that led to the first bishop's death are in the area again, and four Amish girls have been attacked and had their long braids cut off, a potential religious hate crime but one the local police can do nothing about, because the Amish 'want to settle the case within the district'.

Chloe has a new landlord, a professor from the college where she works, who has plans to renovate and sell the period house and who disproves of the free maintenance Timothy has been doing. There is also conflict between the Troyer family and the new Bishop, partly because of their friendship with Becky, which causes her some anguish as she doesn’t want her new friends to be rejected because of her.

A Plain Scandal was very good. It is a solid murder mystery, with intelligent and realistic characters (not something I can say about many Amish novels), a couple of red herrings, a twist, and all the loose ends tied up by the last page, and some nice progress in the romance between Becky and Timothy. I will certainly be looking forward to reading the next Appleseed Creek mystery.

Thanks to B&H Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Amanda Flower at her website.

Review: A Plain and Simple Heart by Lori Copeland and Virginia Smith

Rebecca Switzer has a crush on Englischer Jesse Montgomery, but knows that her father will never permit another daughter to marry a non-Amish man. At seventeen, Rebecca hasn’t seen the cattle drover for four years, yet she still harbours a fantasy that he will return to Apple Grove, Kansas, join the Amish and marry her. She finds out the Jesse is living in Lawrence, Texas, so enlists the help of her sister and brother-in-law to travel alone to Lawrence, announce her love to Jesse and bring him back to Apple Grove.

This first impression of Rebecca is not good. She is wilful and naïve, not a good combination at any age but particularly not for a teenager who fancies herself in love with a virtual stranger than she hasn’t seen or heard from in years, especially one with a reputation for drinking and women. Her justification for this very un-Amish behaviour is that as she is on rumspringa, not yet baptised into the church, and therefore should be permitted an adventure before adopting a lifetime of obedience to the Ordnung.

Unfortunately for Rebecca, when she arrives in Lawrence, she finds herself arrested with the women of the local temperance movement, and jailed for ninety days under the supervision of town Sheriff Colin Maddox. We then get introduced to Amos Beiler, a widow with three children who is interested in marrying Rebecca, who, at thirteen years her senior, is closer in age to his daughter than to him. I think that's a bit creepy. It is creepy in real life (Michael Douglas, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney) and it's creepy in fiction.

The story was well-written and I really liked Colin and the other Lawrence townsfolk. I just found it difficult to like Rebecca, and it’s really hard to like a book when, as a reader, you don’t like or can’t related to the main character. Overall, I found the temperance subplot much more interesting than the main romance plot, which was a more than a little unbelievable, both in terms of timing and a lack of romantic tension.

I read A Plain and Simple Heart because I wondered if an Amish romance would be better for being set in a time where the technological differences between the Amish and the Englisch were not so obvious. It wasn't. The writing was good, but it had the same vapid heroine as many of the contemporary equivalents. Maybe she reminds me of myself at that age; maybe she is a sign of what I hope my own daughter won't become; maybe she just makes me think of Bella from Twilight. Either way, I just couldn't relate to Rebecca.

This book is the second in The Amish of Apple Grove series, but can easily be read as a stand-alone. The Heart's Frontier dealt with the romance between Emma (Rebecca’s sister) and Luke. They seem to be nice characters, from what little we saw of them in A Plain and Simple Heart, so that may be worth reading. But unless you are a fan of teenage romance or Amish fiction, I wouldn’t recommend A Plain and Simple Heart.

Thanks to Harvest House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can read more about Lori Copeland and Virginia Smith on their websites. 

Review: Material Witness by Vanetta Chapman

Mrs Knepp, the ornery owner of the one of the two quilt shops in Shipshewana, Indiana, is found dead outside Callie Harper's quilt shop, and the only witnesses are a dog and a disabled seven-year-old boy. Callie soon hears from the murderer, when he drugs her dog, tears up her apartment and threatens to harm the boy if she doesn't turn over the money. It is an obvious case of mistaken identity because she doesn't have 'the money', but can the police find the murderer before he makes good on his threats?

Meanwhile, Callie and her Amish friends, Deborah, Melinda, and Esther, have received a strange commission in the will of old Mrs Hochstetler: to restore and sell three antique quilts. The quilts are not in traditional Amish patterns, and they seem to present their own mystery to solve.

Material Witness was good, but not as good as the other two books in the series. Although I liked the way the plot lines all came together at the end, the last couple of chapters almost felt a little rushed, as if something had been cut out to make way for the required epilogue that ties up all the loose ends. I think I would rather have had more detail around the puzzle surrounding the quilts, and have left the relationship a little more vague. But the thing I really liked about this series was still present: a positive presentation of mature Amish women, as I am over the teenage Amish romances that have flooded the market in recent years.

I understand that Material Witnessis the final of Vanetta Chapman’s Shipshewana Mysteries, following Falling to Pieces and A Perfect Square (both previously reviewed on this blog). While I have enjoyed this series, I am pleased for the residents of Shipshe (pop. 600), who might have wanted their small town to retain its name as a well-known shopping destination, not a potential murder capital! However, (fictional) murder in small Amish towns is obviously a trend that is catching on, as I have another book in my review pile from another author that is also set in Shipshewana, so this won’t be the last time I visit (in a literary sense). And I hope that the author will consider writing a similar series in another location, because I do enjoy these mystery novels.

Thanks to Zondervan and NetGalley for providing a free book for review. You can read more about Vanetta Chapman on her website.

Review: Something Blue by Dianne Christner

Megan Weaver a Conservative Mennonite who works as the assistant to the owner of Char Air, a charter airline who also operate charity flights. Her boss is taking time out to mend his marriage, and his brother is taking over in his absence. Chance Campbell is a missionary pilot in Ecuador, and is immediately attracted to his pretty assistant, despite her unfashionable Mennonite appearance. The attraction is mutual, especially as Megan has always felt she would marry either a minister or a missionary. But Chance is not a Mennonite.

Meanwhile, Megan's church is recruiting a new minister, and one of the applicants is her college nemesis. Micah Zimmerman has changed. He is still attracted to Megan, but finds himself competing for her attention. Micah is trying to get the church members to support hiring him, without giving any of the single women false hope.

I found Megan to be a bit naïve and shallow. I could accept her wanting to marry within her own denomination and even could understand her reluctance to move to another country. But I thought it a bit shallow that she felt she couldn’t marry outside her ‘faith’, the Mennonite denomination. After all, Chance is a Christian. Shouldn’t that be enough?

Micah was sweet, caring, sensitive, and hiding his true feelings so he could develop a friendship with Megan. And he’s a Mennonite minister – what more does Megan want? Well, it takes her a while to work out whether she wants the dashing Chance or the conservative Micah, but the ending was worth the wait, and made up for the mid-book dithering between the two.

Something Blue is the third book in the Plain City Bridesmaids series (following Something Old and Something New), but can easily be read as a stand-alone. Enjoyable romance, probably better suited for a younger readership.

Thanks to Barbour and NetGalley for providing a free book for review.

Review: A Plain Death by Amanda Flower

Chloe Humphrey is a twenty-four-year old Masters graduate, a computer geek with a pet cat called Gigabyte and counts two suitcases full of obsolete computer parts among her most precious possessions. She is moving from Cleveland to Appleseed Creek, Ohio, to take a two-year job as Director of Computer Services at the local college. As she is driving to her new home, she picks up an Amish woman who is being harassed by two men. Nineteen-year-old Becky has recently left home, following an argument over her artistic desires, and Chloe finds herself with an unexpected boarder who places her in the middle of a family argument.

Things get even more untidy when Becky borrows Chloe’s car without permission, and has an accident which kills the Amish Bishop. But what appears at first to be a simple car accident turns into a murder investigation, and Chloe works with Becky’s handsome older brother, Timothy, to determine who the likely victim was, investigate who could possibly want to kill them. Timothy has left the Amish faith, and is now working at the college as a carpenter. Meanwhile, Chloe has been asked to make budget cuts in her new role, which will mean making one of her staff redundant, which is not a decision she wants to make.

I really enjoyed A Plain Death. It is a cozy mystery set in an area with significant Amish and Mennonite populations, and involves both Plain and Englisher characters, which I find more interesting than a story centred around the Amish. It also has an intelligent and likeable heroine working closely with a strong, good-looking hero to solve a mystery, with a good level of suspense and a little romance thrown in. All that was missing was… um, no. That would be a spoiler. I look forward to reading more about Chloe, Timothy and Appleseed Creek in future books.

Thanks to B&H Books and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Leaving Lancaster by Kate Lloyd

Almost forty years have passed since Esther Gingerich and Samuel Fisher ran away from their Amish upbringing in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and headed west to live in a hippie commune and sing on the streets of San Francisco. They married, Samuel was drafted, shipped off to Vietnam and declared MIA, leaving Esther to raise their daughter alone because she was too proud to return to her family. Holly grew up believing her grandparents were dead, so it comes as a complete shock to her when Esther announces her intention to visit their Amish family, and wants Holly to come.

The story alternates between being told in the first person (by 37-year-old Holly) and the third person (from the point of view of Esther, Holly's mother). I continually found myself backtracking to the beginning of the chapter because I hadn't picked up the change. Call me fussy, but combining first person and third person doesn't ring true for me. It reminds me that I'm just reading a story about a bunch of made-up characters. This meant that I was noticing the writing rather than being carried along by the story, and as a result, I kept finding more things that bothered me While these were mostly minor, many of which were addressed later in the story, I found these glitches were pulling me out of the story.

For example, should I really be getting distracted by a Wikipedia article on how the Vietnam draft worked in the US when I am reading a contemporary novel set in Amish Pennsylvania? (How does a homeless hippie get drafted anyway? And when is this novel set? Holly is 37, and Wikipedia tells me the US stopped drafting men in 1973, which means this novel is set in 2010, not 2012. Yes, that is exactly how picky I get when the story isn’t grabbing me sufficiently).

There were also contradictions. At one point, Esther thinks “According to her folks’ bishop and preachers, if she didn’t obey the Ordnung, God would never allow her into paradise”, then later “[Amish] ways centered on obeying God”. So are these Amish obeying God or the Ordnung? Jesus and the New Testament Pharisees taught us that obeying the rules is not the same as obeying God, and as a Bible-reading Christian, Esther should know that.

And I found Holly a little hard to relate to. I could understand her anger and resentment towards her mother for having hidden her very alive family for so many years. I could not understand someone living in a shop selling Amish goods yet knowing so little about the Amish and their customs. She also struck me as very self-centred, and I didn’t really see this change as the story progressed.

Overall, I can’t say that I enjoyed Leaving Lancaster. Plot-wise, it wasn’t bad, with an underlying theme of honesty and forgiveness. But I found the writing style too distracting to allow me to get into and enjoy the story, so I had to struggle to finish it.

Thanks to David C Cook and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Arms of Love by Kelly Long

On her deathbed, Mary Yoder extracts a promise from young Adam Wyse that he will give up the love of her daughter, Lena, until he is free from his father’s harsh rule. Adam makes the promise, but reluctantly because of his love for Lena, and decides that he will go and fight in the Revolutionary War, despite the pacifist stance of his Amish faith.

Arms of Love is different to most Amish novels, in that it is set in 1777, near Lancaster in William Penn’s Wood (which we know from modern Amish novels becomes Lancaster County, Pennsylvania). This historical setting provided for some external conflict, both literally and figuratively, as many Amish apparently did abandon their pacifist beliefs to fight for the Revolutionary cause in the War of Independence.

The historical setting meant that the novel focused more on the internal conflicts in the relationships between the families, and when the Amish were distinguished from their neighbours by their dress rather than their old-fashioned way of living. After all, in 1777, everyone baked their own bread and electricity hadn’t been discovered.

Most Amish novels use a combination of English and German to convey the fact that most Amish speak German at home, even today (although the Yoder family obviously didn’t speak German at home, because there was no reference to the language issue when Ruth, the English wet nurse arrived).

But I found that Arms of Love took the use of German too far, to the point that it detracted from the story. Using 'gut' for 'good' was manageable, but some of the German words used were not so common or easily translatable (e.g. Derr Herr for God or fesh washa for the ceremony of foot washing). There was a glossary at the beginning of the book but it is irritating enough to continually have to skip back and forward between the glossary and the story in a physical book. It is almost impossible on an e-reader.

The passing of time was another issue. It seems to be only a matter of days or possibly weeks between the death of Mary Yoder and her husband's remarriage. He had barely had time to mourn the loss of his wife, yet we were expected to believe that he had fallen in love with another woman.

As a result, I found Arms of Love hard to get into, and didn’t really ‘get’ the story, so didn’t enjoy it at all. I found the first half quite disjointed - several characters, especially the men, seem to suffer from having multiple personalities - cruel one minute and kind the next, with no explanation. Sometimes this technique is used to introduce hidden secrets; here I found it to be confusing and distracting rather than mysterious and exciting.

As well as the usual discussion questions at the end of the book, Arms of Love also includes a four week Bible study, with a deeper focus on some of the themes of the story. I just suspect the author focused too much on creating a story that people could learn from, and not enough on creating a story people would enjoy reading.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Hiding in Plain Sight by Amy Wallace

Ashley Walters has recently moved to Montezuma, Georgia, a small town with a sizeable Mennonite community. She is still mourning the death of her brother, Eric, who died ten years ago when she was eighteen, an unsolved crime that inspired her decision to join the police. One night, a callout to a store robbery introduces her to Bradley Yoder, a thirteen-year-old Mennonite boy who is searching for his birth mother following the death of his adoptive father. She befriends Bradley and his handsome uncle, Jonathan, and finds that Bradley is implicated in a series of accidents at the Yoder farm.

She has also started dating for the first time since Eric’s death, after being set up by a neighbour. Patrick is a marriage and relationship counsellor and a Christian (even though Ashley hasn't been on speaking terms with God since Eric died). He is on the town's revitalisation committee, which has plans to revitalise Montezuma by capitalising on its Mennonite heritage. But the investor wants to forbid the Mennonites from sharing the faith that defines them as a group, which causes friction.

I thought I knew where Hiding in Plain Sightwas going after the first few chapters, but then it changed to become more of a romantic suspense, with the addition of the farm accidents and occasional scenes from the point of view of the vandal, as we try to puzzle out his identity. I liked the subtle way the author introduced this, and the way it gradually grew in importance as the story progresses, while other plot points that I had thought would be important turned out not to be.

I really liked the way Hiding in Plain Sightdealt with Ashley's attitude towards God. She softens gradually throughout the story, in a way that felt a lot more realistic than many Christian authors manage. I also liked the strong underlying theme of faith and forgiveness, and the way the author built it in without preaching, but without compromise. 

There were a couple of conversations that I had to reread to work out who was actually speaking, although that could have been because I was reading an ARC with some formatting issues and a couple of typos. (An ARC is an advance reader copy of the book, provided to people like booksellers, librarians and reviewers in advance of publication. Sometimes these are the 'clean' ebook version of the printed book, but often, as in this case, they are unproofed copies so there can be mistakes.)

Overall, Hiding in Plain Sightwas a well-written book with a solid underlying Christian theme, and some lovely poetic language hidden between the more suspenseful scenes. Thanks to Harvest House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: A Perfect Square by Vanetta Chapman

A Perfect Square brings us back to Shipshewana, to Callie and her Amish friends, and to what looks like another murder, when the Amish women find a teenage girl drowned in Reuben’s pond. Their discovery is observed by a hidden stranger, who escapes unseen and narrates his portion of the story through a series of flashbacks.

As A Perfect Squareunfolds, we find out that the victim is newly-wed Katie, and the reader is left to uncover the mystery that links her with the mysterious stranger, Reuben and the four women. In the middle of this, Callie receives a visit from an old man who wants her to find his daughter. The problem is that Ira Bontrager has dementia, and his son says he was an only child. This is potentially another mystery: is there a missing daughter, and how does this relate to the murdered girl?

There are aspects of Amish culture that I find strange, such as the way they answer direct questions but will not volunteer additional information even when it might be relevant. Reuben is particularly reticent. This has the potential to be misleading and could be seen as an obstruction of justice. And this time, withholding information is going to get Reuben into trouble. The rules of the mystery genre dictate that the culprit is a character we know. This gets a bit awkward, as we get to know the cast and don't want it to be any of them, not even Reuben, who is definitely hiding something.

One of the things I like most about these books is that the characters seem very real. Callie is reluctant to date either Andrew or Trent because she just feels herself pulling back. It seemed like the natural reluctance of a young widow, and I liked it. The characters are by no means perfect. Even the Amish have tempers and meltdowns and question God just like the rest of us (I say ‘even’ because so much Amish fiction romanticises the Amish to the point that they all appear to be ‘perfect Christians’). And I really liked the ending. It was beautiful, full of understanding, grace and forgiveness. But you’ll have to read it yourself to find out why.

A Perfect Square is the second in the Shipshewana series, following Falling to Pieces, and the third book, Material Witness, is due to be published in August 2012. More information about Vanetta Chapman can be found at her website or blog. Thanks to Zondervan and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Something New by Dianne Christner

Lillian Mae Landis considers herself a plain woman in every aspect – birth, upbringing, church, clothes and looks.  She has always dreamed of being something more, specifically, being head chef at a restaurant, despite the teaching of her Conservative Mennonite church that married women don’t work outside the home, and that such ambitions are prideful and therefore sinful.  There are also problems at home – the family farm is almost bankrupt, her brother has left their Conservative church, and her mother is experiencing depression, which has (in their Conservative circles) a stigma of personal and spiritual failure.

Fletch Stauffer is also a Mennonite, but from a more progressive sect.  He is a missionary kid, now training to be a vet at the advice of Marshall, a long-term financial contributor to his parents’ mission.  His dream is to be ordinary, because living in Africa as a child meant he’d always been different from everyone else.  Lily and Fletch meet after she backs into his car in the parking lot of the restaurant where she works.  They are quickly attracted to each other, and get the opportunity to spend time together when Fletch’s vet internship brings him to the Landis pig farm. 

Conflict arrives when Fletch is asked to undertake some voluntary work at an animal shelter, then makes an error of judgement that loses him the trust of the Landis family, including Lily.  He then has to work through what he should have done, and make amends.  Meanwhile, Lily is facing her own challenges, including what to do if her relationship with Fletch progresses, as she can’t imagine him joining her church, yet she knows it would hurt her family if she were to leave.

The story was initially confusing, as it started with three ten-year-old Mennonite girls at summer camp, then skipped forward several years without making clear exactly how old the friends now were.  My initial reaction was that I’d accidentally stumbled on a Young Adult novel, which was not what I was expecting (while I have no objection to reading YA, I like to know in advance).  While it soon became apparent that the three friends are now adults (as one had just married), parts of the novel still had a rather YA feel to them.  I’m not sure if that was because of the young age and level of maturity of the protagonists (early 20’s, I think), because of a lack of worldliness in the Conservative Mennonite Church, or because of my personal views on the scriptural basis for some of the church rules, but it did mean that it took me a while to get into it.  I also found the ending a bit abrupt, almost as though the last chapter was deleted to make room for the epilogue.

Something New (Plain City)follows on from Something Old(the story of Kate and Jake), so I’m guessing the next in the series will be Something Borrowed (the story of Mercy, the last of the three friends), possibly followed by Something Blue? They don’t have to be read in order, although many people do prefer to read in order to avoid spoilers.  However, it’s a romance, which, by definition has to have a ‘happy ever after’.  How much more of a spoiler could there be?  I did enjoy Something New (Plain City), but it was not, for me, a great novel.  I would read more novels by Dianne Christner, but she won’t be one of those authors I read or buy automatically.

Thanks to Barbour Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook to review.

Review: A Life of Joy by Amy Clipston

Since her parents died four years ago, Lindsay Bedford has lived with her Amish Aunt and Uncle in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  She is now eighteen, and her friends are planning on taking the ‘Instruction for Baptism’ classes, after which they will be baptised and become full members of the Amish faith, responsible for fulfilling all the rules of the Ordnung.  While her friends expect her to join them in the class and get baptised, her sister, Jessica, who is attending college, is encouraging Lindsay to complete her high school education and consider further education.  As Lindsay is pondering her choice, she is asked to spend the summer back in her old hometown in Virginia, helping a close family friend recover from a broken leg.  This brings her into contact with some of her old friends, and helps her decide which life she will choose.

A Life of Joy is the fourth in the Kauffman Amish Bakery series, following A Gift of Grace, A Promise of Hope and A Place of Peace.  However, it can easily be read as a stand-alone, as the relevant events from the previous books are covered in enough depth that the new reader understands the background, without providing so much detail as to bore the regular reader.  I suspect these titles are more focused at the Young Adult than then Adult market.  While there was nothing wrong with the book, I am old enough that I don’t really want to read about teenagers any more – but I can fully see that these would be worthwhile books for my daughter to read in a few years.  A Life of Joyemphasised the importance of making your own decisions based on your own faith in God, and not allowing external pressures or ‘worldly’ people to influence that decision, and this is certainly something I expect that many Christian parents seek to teach their children.

There were a few things that puzzled me in A Life of Joy, but these are more a commentary on US life in general and Amish life in particular than any criticism of the book.  I found it amusing that while the Amish are not permitted to own or use most modern technology, it is permitted for them to sell souvenirs like “books, maps, postcards, magnets, keychains, collectible spoons and note cards”, all of which must be mass-produced (probably in China) using manufacturing methods that the Amish would not themselves be permitted to use.  And is it a cash-only business, or are they permitted the electronic machinery necessary to accept credit cards?  I found it frustrating when one character reminds another that “the Bible tells us not to judge one another”, when the central plot feature of so many Amish books (although not this one) is shunning – casting ‘sinners’ out of the Amish community until they repent.  And I just shook my head when Lindsay passed her GED (the equivalent of a high school diploma).  How hard can it be if a teen with no formal high school education can pass by studying one book for only a month?  No wonder most American teenagers seem to spend their high school years in a mainstream equivalent to the Amish rumspringa (‘running around’). 

Thanks to Zondervan and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: A Stranger’s Gift by Anna Schmidt

You will have heard the old joke about the guy who is on the roof of his house during a flood or hurricane, and his neighbour comes along in a rowboat to rescue him.  ‘No, God will rescue me,’ the man says.  Next come a crew in a speedboat, but again he says ‘No, God will rescue me’.  Finally a helicopter hovers overhead to winch him up, but he sends that away too.  So, the guy drowns, goes to heaven and is really upset.  He asks God, “why didn’t you rescue me?”, and God says “I sent a rowboat, a speedboat and a helicopter – what were you waiting for?”.  The first part of joke forms the basis for the plot of this novel (well, you can hardly kill off the hero!).

A Stranger's Giftbegins with Hester Detweiler working with the Mennonite Central Committee, a national disaster relief organisation, to prepare for Hurricane Hester, which is due to hit her hometown of Pinecraft, Florida.  Hester is the local MCC leader, a role that causes some consternation among the more conservative members of the Mennonite congregation her father pastors.  They believe that a woman of her age should be channelling her energies into a husband and children, but Hester, at 33, shows no signs of marring (even though there are whispers that her father expects her to marry Samuel Brubaker, the new carpenter he has recently hired).

John Steiner has been banned from his Amish community because he wants to experiment with self-sufficient living in the style of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.  He has spent the last two years working alone on his property near Pinecraft, repairing and restoring it, and has no intention of leaving despite the impending arrival of Hurricane Hester.  

Although the Amish and the Mennonite faiths are linked by a common Anabaptist heritage, plain dress and a simple, separatist lifestyle, the differences are clear.  Hester, a trained nurse, has a college education whereas most Amish leave school when they reach thirteen.  The Mennonites also appear to interact much more with the outside community, as evidenced by Hester’s voluntary work for an aid charity.  However, Hester is still frustrated by the weight of expectation upon her, to fulfil her place in “a community where sameness was not only preferred by also expected”, when her personal longing was for “something beyond the norm”.  John has his own frustrations and an overwhelming sense of guilt that he must overcome.  As John and Hester get to know each other, they find that perhaps they can work together for the good of others.

A Stranger's Gift is not at all preachy.  Obviously, when a novel is based on the lives of a very conservative Christian denomination there is going to be some religious or spiritual content, but it is not overwhelming or out of place.  It is a story of two individuals who don’t quite fit in with the way they were raised, and who individually and together come to realise (and convince those around them) that God can work though many different types of people.  Overall, this was a very enjoyable novel and I would certainly read more from Anna Schmidt.  The second novel in The Women of Pinecraft series, A Sister’s Forgiveness, is due to be published in May 2012.

Review: The Healing by Wanda E Brunstetter

Samuel Fisher has just lost his beloved wife, Elise, mother of their four small children. Living in their shared family home has too many reminders of their life together, so he decides to move from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, to the Amish community where his younger brother, Titus, now lives. Once there Samuel begins working as a painter and general handyman for an ‘English’ woman, Bonnie, who is opening a Bed-and-Breakfast in her grandmother’s old home. Samuel hires Esther, a local Amish woman, to look after his children while he works, and Esther rapidly forms an attachment with the grieving children who are being virtually ignored by their father. She develops feelings for Samuel as well, but will he heal from his loss and see what could be? And if he does, will he return Esther’s feelings, or will he form a bond with Bonnie despite her not being Amish?

The only Amish books I have read until now have been by Beverley Lewis, and have been exclusively set in the Old Order Amish communities of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This book was set in a less conservative Amish community, and there were a number of noticeable differences, particularly the way the Amish characters in this community appear to know and are able to quote appropriate Bible verses, so this was a pleasant change. (I find the rules of the Old Order Amish to be very restricting, similar to the Jewish law outlined in Leviticus).

The Healing is the second book in the Kentucky Brothers series, following The Journey. Although it is obvious that it is part of a series, it reads well as a stand-alone (although I suspect from the way further back-stories are hinted at that some of the minor characters are part of other Brunstetter books, and it is clear that the Timothy/Hannah sub-plot existed only to set the background to the next book in the series). I’m sure that fans of Wanda Brunstetter or Amish fiction in general will enjoy this book, but I found the constant German phrases annoying, the ending was a complete cliché, and the Timothy/Hannah subplot came across as an over-engineered conflict that could have been solved by an honest conversation between Timothy and his father-in-law. Of course, that would mean there couldn’t be a whole book dedicated to it… As you have no doubt guessed, I won’t be reading the sequel.

Genre: Amish Fiction

I have a couple of reviews of Amish fiction coming up, with more due in early 2012. It has been a while since I read any, and as it is set in quite a different ‘world’ to most fiction, I thought I would start by giving a bit of an introduction to the genre for those who haven’t been exposed to Amish fiction before.

Amish fiction typically focuses on the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and other communities around the United States. The Amish are often referred to as ‘Plain’ or ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’, a corruption of ‘Deutsch’, as they typically speak a variant of German in their homes, although they also speak English. The Amish refer to non-Amish as ‘English’ (regardless of national or racial heritage) or as ‘Fancy’. The Mennonites have similar beliefs, but are more progressive in that they wear more contemporary clothes and use ‘worldly’ devices.

The Amish religion and traditions grew out of the Anabaptist reformers who rejected to what they felt were corrupt practices in the Protestant and Catholic religions of the 1500's. The Amish stress the importance of “keeping the body pure and spotless and free from the contaminating influences of the worldly aspects of life”. Common Amish rules include separation from the world, hard work, a woman’s submission to her husband and mode of dress.

Although the initial reason for leaving the established church was the Amish belief that congregation members are just as capable of interpreting the Bible as the clergy, they do not have “personal evangelism, personal Bible studies, and personal conversions… Such behaviour would threaten to elevate the individual over the community. Those who do attempt to show of their Biblical knowledge by quoting the scriptures are referred to as ‘Scripture Proud’…. They feel it would be an egotistical expression of vanity to ever claim they are certain of their eternal salvation. Instead, they feel it is their duty to live obediently to God's will and, in due time, God will reward the faithful.”

The Amish have no central church government, and live by a behavioural code called the Ordnung. The Ordnung covers every aspect of day-to-day living, and includes prohibitions or limitations on the use of power-line electricity, telephones, and automobiles, as well as regulations on clothing. Rules might differ by district (for instance, one district might be allowed to use a telephone but another might not), and disobeying the rules can result in ‘shunning’ – removal from the community until the individual repents. However, the Amish freely forgive, most publicly following a schoolhouse shooting in 2006 that left five young girls dead, now the subject of the movie Amish Grace.

While the rules of the Ordnung often sound rigid and controlling (groups have apparently been known to separate over infractions as minor as the width of a hat brim), the focus is meant to be on building and guarding character, to guide people into more Christ-like behaviour. Gelassenheit, or submission to the will of God, is central to their beliefs, and is shown through obedience, humility and simplicity. Individuality, selfishness and pride are abhorrent. The Amish seek to live lives devoted to God, family and community, based on God’s laws, valuing freedom of heart, peace of mind and a clear conscience. While the rules may seem restricting to outsiders, there is much to admire in the Amish culture, and this attracts the modern ‘English’ reader.

Popular Christian authors of Amish fiction include:

Wanda E Brunstetter
Linda Byler
Vanetta Chapman
Mindy Starns Clark
Amy Clipston
Diane Christner
Jerry Eicher
Mary Ellis
Suzanne Woods Fisher
Katherine Fuller
Ann H Gabhart
Tricia Goyer
Laura Hilton
BJ Hoff
Beverley Lewis
Hillary Manton Lodge
Kelly Long
Judith Miller
Marta Perry
Shelley Shepard Gray
Ruth Reid
Gayle Roper
Anna Schmidt
Beth Wiseman
Cindy Woodsmall

Most Amish fiction is contemporary, with a focus on the juxtaposition between ‘Plain’ life and the modern world. Some authors write Amish fiction exclusively, with the plot and characters all or mostly Amish. Others may be set in Lancaster County, but with ‘English’ main characters and only bring in the Amish as minor characters or plot points. Some authors also write ‘regular’ Christian fiction (romance, romantic suspense, historical, contemporary).

(Information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish. Quotes from http://www.welcome-to-lancaster-county.com/amish-religion.html).