Amish Fiction

Amish-raised Ada Rupp knows it’s time to make a commitment to the faith and join the church, especially if she wants a future with the handsome Amish widower Will Gundy. But when she has the chance to travel to Switzerland as the caregiver of a young child, she leaps at the opportunity.

As a bishop's daughter and good Amish mother, widowed Sadie Hochstetler teaches her young son that God blesses those who try their best to please Him. But her brief marriage taught her that life is infinitely more complicated than that. Older, and serious, her late husband seemed a sensible choice - especially compared to Elijah Fisher, the spirited boy with whom she butted heads and hearts. Then Elijah abruptly left for the Englisher world, taking Sadie's beloved brother along with him - a double betrayal she still strives to forgive. Especially now that Elijah has returned....

Essie Lapp's birthday is doubly blessed. There's a delicious meal to savor with her family, and the sweet gift of time spent with her beau, Harlan. Over two years they've forged a bond as strong and hopeful as a tree reaching for the sky. To practical-minded Essie, there's comfort in knowing exactly what her future will bring. Yet Gott has his plan, and it soon turns her family's world upside down....

Fifteen years ago, Lainey O'Toole made a split-second decision. She couldn't have known that her choice would impact so many. Now in her mid-20s, she is poised to go to culinary school when her car breaks down in Stoney Ridge, the very Amish town in which her long-reaching decision was made, forcing her to face the shadowed past.

In the summer of 1951, 18-year-old Maggie Esh is in need of some hope. Sweet-spirited and uncommonly pretty despite struggling with a debilitating illness, she is accustomed to being treated kindly by the young men of her Old Order Amish church district. Yet no one but Jimmy Beiler ever asks her out, and she always declines, certain he only pities her. To make matters worse, Dat has recently remarried, less than a year after Maggie's mother died. And while her stepmother is kind, she's much younger than Mamm, and she simply doesn't understand Maggie or her illness the way Mamm did.

Martha Detweiler has a problem many Amish women her age would envy: She’s the only single woman in a community of young men, and they’re all competing for her favor. Overwhelmed by the unwanted attention, Martha finds herself constantly fleeing from her would-be suitors, dismayed at what her life has come to. Birch Creek’s resident matchmaker, Cevilla Schlabach, suggests a solution: Martha and the bishop’s son, Seth Yoder, should pretend they are dating.

When Selah Ropp returns to Birch Creek, she is a different person than when she left. "I know I haven’t done much listening in the past, Lord", she prays. "But I’m listening now." Her new friend, Cevilla Schlabach, urges her to let go of regrets and allow this to be a fresh start. Cevilla herself, though, hides a secret longing behind her weathered face. Levi Stoll and his family spent a year transforming a large English house into a small inn.

En Alt Maedel - an old maid. At age 29, that's what Eva Lapp considers herself. Finding a good Amish husband at her age will be next to impossible. Plus, Eva's unwarranted bad reputation in Lancaster County precedes her. Maybe living the Englisch life would be better. Squeezed out of her childhood home by her brother's boisterous family, Eva finds lodging and a new job managing a small cafe at a local plant nursery. Then to her surprise, her first love, Jake Miller, suddenly returns to Lancaster County.

Susie Mast's Old Order life in Lancaster County's Hickory Hollow has been shaped by events beyond her control, with the tragic deaths of her Dat and close-in-age brother casting a particularly long shadow. Now 22, Susie remains unmarried despite her longtime affection for friend Obie Yoder. Believing Obie might never show romantic interest in her, Susie accepts Del Petersheim's invitations - it is only after Obie leaves to take an apprenticeship that Susie realizes her mistake.

Since her husband died seven years ago, Leanna Wengerd has done her best — caring for her son, Chester, and running her Jam and Jelly Nook at the Amish market. Though she enjoys seeing her cousins and customers at the marketplace, she wishes she could find more time for her rebellious teenage boy.

Lizzie Engel is used to running away. At 18, she left her Mennonite hometown, Kingdom, Kansas, with plans never to return. But five years later, the new life she built is falling apart. Lizzie knows she's being followed, and she's certain the same mysterious stranger is behind the threatening letters she's received. Realizing she'll have to run again, the only escape Lizzie can manage is a return to the last place she wants to go. Once she arrives in Kingdom, Lizzie is confident she’ll be safe until she comes up with a new plan.

Everyone in Painters Mill knows the abandoned Hochstetler farm is haunted. But only a handful of the residents remember the terrible secrets lost in the muted/hushed whispers of time - and now death is stalking them, seemingly from the grave. On a late-night shift, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called to the scene of an apparent suicide - an old man found hanging from the rafters in his dilapidated barn.

Charity Raber is one of many single women who came to Birch Creek, Ohio, with one goal in mind: secure a husband from among the desperate bachelors a newspaper advertisement claimed inhabited the town. Even though that claim proved to be nothing more than a cruel prank, Charity is still hopeful that her happy ending might be within reach when she’s set up on a date with Jesse Bontrager. That is until Jesse not-so-gently shares that he has no interest in a relationship with anyone—and especially not with her.

While enjoying a sleigh ride with his children, Amish widower Adam Lengacher discovers a car stuck in a snowdrift and an unconscious woman inside. He calls upon Chief of Police Kate Burkholder for help, and she is surprised to recognize the driver: fellow cop and her former friend, Gina Colorosa. Years before, Kate and Gina were best friends at the police academy and patrol officers in Columbus, but time and distance have taken them down two very different paths. Now, Gina reveals a shocking story of betrayal and revenge that has forced her to run for her life.

One quilt binds three generations of Amish women. Enjoy the gift of a brand new romance from New York Times best-selling author Wanda E. Brunstetter, along with stories by her daughter-in-law, Jean and granddaughter, Richelle.

It was the early 1900s when Obadiah (Oba) and Merriweather's (May's) parents died tragically, leaving them orphans at ten and eleven years old. When none of their nearby relations volunteer to take them in, they are set on a train to Arkansas to go live on their Amish aunt and uncle's cotton farm. Once there, it didn't take long to discover they would be treated cruelly, no matter what they did. May, always anxious to be a godly young lady, took on more and more responsibility, trying desperately to keep the peace and convince her older brother not to run away.

Amanda Dienner hasn't spoken a word to her Old Order mother or twin sister in five years when she receives word that her mother has passed away and left her Lancaster County's most popular Amish bed-and-breakfast. Now an Englisher, Mandy is shocked: Her sister should have been the obvious choice! But because this is all her controlling mother's doing, of course there's a catch, and Mandy soon learns that the farmhouse inn will only truly be hers if she is able to successfully run it for one year.

It's autumn in Painters Mill, and Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and John Tomasetti are taking a much-needed vacation at a small bed and breakfast an hour outside of town. After closing a difficult case, they're looking forward to some down time, but their relaxation is cut short by rumors that the old house where they're staying is haunted by a girl who disappeared twenty years earlier, leaving nothing behind but some bloody clothes by the river and rumors of a volatile relationship.

Two years ago Joseph King was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to life in prison. He was a "fallen" Amish man and, according to local law enforcement, a known drug user with a violent temper. Now King has escaped, and he’s headed for Painters Mill. News of a murderer on the loose travels like wildfire and putting Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and her team of officers on edge. A nightmare scenario becomes reality when King shows up with a gun and kidnaps his five children from their Amish uncle’s house. He’s armed and desperate with nothing left to lose.

Convinced her illness has made her unmarriageable, Marietta wonders what kind of life she'll have if her sister marries - despite Molly's promise to never leave her behind.... Then a fire destroys the home of Amish neighbors and Molly and Marietta graciously make room for widower Glenn Detweiler, his dat, and his two young boys.