"Plain Truth" by Jodi Picoult

416 pages

An infant is found dead in an Amish barn only hours after being born. There’s only one woman of child-bearing age on the farm—and she shows evidence of recently given birth. When she is charged with the baby’s murder, everyone in the area is shocked. No one can remember an Amish person being accused of any crime, much less such a hideous one. Meanwhile, high-profile attorney Ellie just needs a break. After her long-term relationship went sour, she escaped to Amish country to stay with her aunt and uncle on their quiet farm. But now Ellie’s aunt, who used to be Amish and is related to the woman accused of murder, begs her to take the case. Before she knows it, Ellie is living on an Amish farm with the family of the accused as a condition of bail. Not only has she found herself living day-to-day in a world she is completely foreign to her, but she has to try to dig the truth out of a culture she doesn’t understand.

I have a love-hate relationship with Jodi Picoult’s books. I often find the writing style overdramatic and the characters irritating, but I like that she tackles bizarre issues and that there is always a gray area rather than a black-and-white solution. This book is no exception. Having grown up in an area with a high Amish population, I enjoyed the basic premise of the story and the dynamics of the Amish group rang true to me. It seems that Picoult really did her homework. On the other hand, I really didn’t like Ellie very much—she came off as snobby and shallow to me—and I wish they’d left all her personal drama out of the story. I did, however, enjoy the suspense and especially the big twist at the end. I also liked the element of tension that the two different cultures created. Overall, I definitely thought it was worthwhile but it wasn’t a favorite. I think it will definitely appeal to Picoult fans and anyone who enjoys issue-driven fiction. 

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.

"Growing Up Amish" by Ira Wagner

272 pages

Ira Wagler was the ninth child of a Canadian Amish couple's eleven children. As a restless, independent spirit, he always felt out of place in the strict society he grew up in. At seventeen, in the middle of the night, he left home for the first time. This kicked off nearly a decade of going back and forth between the Amish world and the secular as he struggled to figure out where he belonged. In this memoir, he describes what it was like growing up Old World Amish and what it felt like to leave it for a strange new world.

I grew up in a small town with a considerable Amish population, so this book grabbed my eye when I saw it on the shelf. The Amish I knew were friendly but kept many things to themselves, so I was curious about what it was like to be part of that community. Wagler is open and honest about his experience, sharing both the good (tight sense of community and a strong support system) with the bad (black-and-white thinking, discouragement of independent thinking). Some parts seemed a bit repetitive to me, and I think he could have summarized some of the experiences and left out redundant details. Nevertheless, this is a really interesting story gives readers an inside look at Amish culture. It's also a story about one man growing up and finding his place in the world, which almost everyone can relate to.

"Plain Fear: Forsaken" by Leanna Ellis

424 pages

Hannah knows that she should move on and get over Jacob, who died two years ago. Wallowing in grief is not the Amish way, and Jacob's brother Levi loves Hannah and wants to begin a life with her. However, she just can't forget about Jacob. It doesn't help when she starts hearing his voice calling out to her in the night. Then a mysterious stranger shows up in town, a non-Amish man who met Jacob in New Orleans during Jacob's rumspringa, or "running around time." Meanwhile, a detective is investigating the strange disappearances of some young Amish, and what he discovers is more sinister than the simple community could have imagined.

When I heard that an Amish vampire novel had just been published, I had to check it out. It's such a ridiculous concept that I had to see how it played out--sort of like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Plain Fear: Forsaken certainly didn't fail to entertain. The contrast between the simple, religious Amish and the vampire craziness is pretty funny. The book moves a bit slowly at first; I feel like it could be about 100 pages shorter. Still, I enjoyed it.