February Books of the Month

March 20, 2020 by Christina

February feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? I know it was a busy month for me because my calendar is packed with book club meetings, dinner plans with friends, and an introduction to quilting class on Sundays. Yet, from the vantage point of mid-March, it feels unimaginably footloose and fancy free. What did I do when I could go and do whatever I wanted? Well, what I did was read an astonishing 17 books during this month thanks in […]

Categories: 2020 Reads, Amish, Animals, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Book Club, Canada, Caribbean, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Europe, Feminism, Fiction, Food, Indigenious Peoples, Juvenile, LGBTQA+, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, Persephone Books, ReadDiverse, Religion, Travel, United Kingdom, United States, Women's Prize • Tags: A. J. Finn, Adam Darlin, Audre Lorde, Becky Ohlsen, Brendan Sainsbury, Catherine Bodry, Chris Chalk, Christopher Ketcham, Coco Morante, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Edwidge Danticat, Jesmyn Ward, Jia Tolentino, John Lee, Jon Krakauer, Kamila Shamsie, Kevin Harrison Jr, L. M. Montgomery, Linda Castillo, Marghanita Laski, Richard Thomas, Rutina Wesley, Shelly Frasier, Steven Higashide, Susan O'Malley, Sy Montgomery

A Wells Landing Christmas by Amy Lillard

December 24, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – print. Zebra, 2018. 352 pgs. Library copy. Years after he joined the Amish church yet traveled from Oklahoma to Florida, Zeb Brenneman has returned to the Amish community of Wells Landing to meet his twin brother’s new baby and spend Christmas with family. His joy over the season is dampened by the rumors he hears about the woman he once loved, Ivy Weaver. Ivy has largely retreated from her insular community, and she has done little to rebuke […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Amy Lillard

A Love for Leah by Amy Lillard

December 16, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – print. Zebra, 2018. 352 pgs. Library copy. Having returned to her hometown in Mississippi, Leah Gingerich has started a secondhand store in the community and agreed to raise her twin sister’s teenage son while Hannah works towards joining the Amish church. What Leah won’t do, though, is consider becoming Amish again. She and Hannah left nearly twenty years ago, and Leah has found her religious community among the more liberal Mennonite church. When Jamie Stoltzfus moves to the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Amy Lillard

Amy Lillard’s Wells Landing Series

May 23, 2018 by Christina

For the last four weeks, I practically devoured the six novels that comprise Amy Lillard’s Wells Landing series. The fictional Wells Landing, Oklahoma is home to a Beachy Amish community — Beachy because they utilize tractors due to the rocky soil of Oklahoma — and each of Lillard’s novels focus on a young member of the community. The first three novels focus on three close-knit friends — Emily, Caroline, and Lorie — while the next three focus on secondary characters from the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Amish, Audiobook, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Amy Lillard, Rebecca Mitchell

A Simple Charity by Rosalind Lauer

December 1, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Ballantine Books, 2014. 352 pgs. Review copy. Twice widowed, Fanny Lapp is busy juggling housework, raising her children and step-children, and assisting the doctor who serves her Amish community with each homebirth. Without a husband and with several small children to care for, the responsibilities for repairing and maintaining her home and barn have fallen to the wayside. The bishop has sent Zed Miller, who recently returned to the community after leaving during his rumspringa, to assist […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Rosalind Lauer

The Amish by Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt

August 29, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. 500 pgs. Library copy. Known for their simple clothing, plain lifestyle, and horse and buggy mode of transportation, the Amish are one of the more well-known and idolized religious groups in the United States. This book explores the diversity and evolving identities within this distinctive American ethnic community, its transformation over time into separate groups with different levels of adherence to rejecting the modern world, and the group’s geographic expansion. Amish people […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Amish, Chunkster, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, Steven M. Nolt

A Miracle of Hope by Ruth Reid

May 22, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — eBook. Thomas Nelson, 2013. 340 pgs. Library copy. Lindie Wyse is pregnant out of wedlock — a precarious situation to be given that Lindie is Amish — and thinks a marriage arranged by her bother is the only way to preserve her future. Despite her kneeling confession, her community has scorned her and the man she planned to marry wants nothing to do with her. Living in a smaller community in Michigan, Josiah Plank is certain he’ll never […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Ruth Reid

A Simple Faith by Rosalind Lauer

December 8, 2013 by Christina

Fiction — print. Ballantine Books, 2013. 370 pgs. Review copy. Being the first responder on the scene of a tragic highway collision gives nursing student Haley Donovan the confidence she needs to be the kind of nurse she has always wanted to be. The experience introduces her to Lancaster County’s tight-knit Amish community of Halfway and allows her and psychologist Dylan Monroe to bring counseling services to the community torn apart by following this accident. Elsie Lapp, owner of Halfway’s […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Rosalind Lauer

The Secret Keeper by Beverly Lewis

December 7, 2013 by Christina

Fiction — print. Bethany House, 2013. 238 pgs. Advanced review copy. Like many of us who enjoy reading about the Amish, Jenny Burns has contemplated what it would be like to live amongst the Old Order Amish. Jenny, however, has taken steps to make this dream a reality — trading letters with a member of the Hickory Hollow Amish community to establish a connection, selling all her worldly possessions and leaving her job before moving to Hickory Hollow to join […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Beverly Lewis

The Scent of Cherry Blossoms by Cindy Woodsmall

August 14, 2013 by Christina

Fiction — print. WaterBrook Press, 2012. 193 pgs. Library copy. Following further strain on her contentious relationship with her mother, Annie Martin, an Old Order Mennonite woman, is sent to live with her grandfather, Daadi Moses, in Apple Ridge, Pennsylvania. Normally her visits with Daadi Moses are spent caring for her elderly grandfather and this time she finds herself at lost for what she can do. In an attempt to be helpful, she volunteers to help at the Zook family’s […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Cindy Woodsmall

The Bridesmaid by Beverly Lewis

August 20, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Bethany House, 2012. 2012 pgs. Review copy. Twenty-four-year-old Joanna Kurtz’s younger sister, Cora Jane, tells her to heed warning — “three times the bridesmaid, never the bride” — but Joanna won’t head her sister’s warning. In keeping with Amish tradition, she’s been keeping her beau a secret. Eben Troyer lives in Indiana and the distance between the two makes their relationship all the more difficult, never mind the fact that Joanna’s writings make transferring churches unimaginable. Joanna […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Beverly Lewis

The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis

May 16, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Bethany House, 2012. 326 pgs. Review copy. Amish Michael Hostetler feels torn between his Plain heritage and the English world. He wants to listen to music an draw blueprints but he also doesn’t want to disappoint his parents or forsake his relationship with God. Englisher Amelia Devries is well on her way to becoming a world-famous violin player but her heart is drawn to fiddlin’ and country music, much to the chagrin of her parents and manager. […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Amish, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Beverly Lewis