The Fiddler

by Beverly Lewis
326 pages

Amelia is an up-and-coming classical violinist straining under the weight of her father's expectations.  To seek some relief from the pressure, she has taken up a secret hobby as a country fiddle player.  On the way home from a fiddle contest, she drives into an unexpected rainstorm where she encounters a lone Amish man with similar troubles.  Michael is a 25-year-old Amish man who has yet to make the decision to join the Amish church.  He has sought out higher education and works as a draftsman, and he is struggling between his father's expectations and his own desire to pursue life outside the Amish church. Amelia and Michael influence each other to seek out what they really want in life, and a bit of romance sparks along the way.

I liked this novel, but it's a quick read that is fairly predictable.  Unlike most of Lewis's series, the conflict was resolved within one book.  Since the issues were all resolved within this novel, I'm not exactly sure what Lewis is going to do with the next novels in this series.  However, I was quite pleased that I didn't have to wait a year for my happy ending.