Showing titles in Amish & Mennonite

Priscilla Allgyer left the community in hopes of escaping the expectations of Amish life. Now, years later, she is forced to return to the place she thought she'd left behind forever - along with her six-year-old son. Though once estranged from her family, Priscilla is welcomed by her mother, but her father is cold and strict. He allows Priscilla to stay with them provided she dresses plainly, confesses her sins, and agrees to marry within the community. As Priscilla reluctantly completes her shunning, she catches the eye of Mark Riehl, a farmer with a playboy reputation. 

Rachel Stoltzfus never imagined she’d be the talk of her Old Order Mennonite community until whispers stir the moment her belly swells with new life. Unmarried and refusing to repent by naming the partner in her sin, Rachel feels the wrath of the religious sect as she is shunned by those she loves most and eventually forced to leave - driven out by her twin sister’s husband, the bishop. But secrets run deep in this cloistered community, and the bishop is hiding some of his own, threatening his conscience and his very soul.

More lives need some mending... Amish widow-turned-newlywed Emma Yoder Miller begins another quilting class with a new group of unlikely students, all with tattered pieces of their lives that need mending. Selma is a belittling busybody. Terry is a rugged roofer who just wants a casual date with a pretty classmate. Blaine loses a bet and has to join the class, where he soon finds himself in friendly competition with Terry. Anna’s mother signs her up in a desperate attempt to keep Anna from leaving the Amish faith.

SFX: Ker-flush "That's the sound of my career going down the toilet. Three months ago, I was the freelance reporter to call for full-color images of an international crisis. Now? I'm stationed at the far edge of the Chicago flyover as a disappointing mother-sub to my eight-year-old niece and the babysitter for a newsroom College Boy. One photo of the lifeless man was all I needed to see - there's more to this story than anyone wants to admit."

After the wedding of her cousin, Naomi, knitter Anna, a widow, finds herself missing love and the closeness of a husband. She feels a special connection with her grandmother as they both struggle to go on with life. Is Anna on the verge of finding happiness when she realizes John Esh is interested in her? Love begins to warm Anna's heart, but will she be so afraid of losing someone that she gives up the second chance that God has provided?

Naomi knows she should be excited about her upcoming wedding, but she remains unmoved. Not only are her feelings for her fiancé lackluster, but she believes he may see her more as a servant than a partner. And he's so controlling. Is it too late to back out of the marriage?

Lizzie's dream of teaching school has finally come true. She loves the brand-new school building, the sound of the children singing, and the independence she has in the classroom. Even the occasionally unruly boys can't ruin the excitement she feels each morning when she starts the school day. But at home things are in turmoil again. What do Dat's sudden health problems mean for the future of their farm? And what about Lizzie's future?

Barns are burning in Amish author Linda Byler's second book in the Lancaster Burning series, and no one knows who's doing it or why. Can Sarah Beiler end the terror that is pulling apart her community, even as her own heart is pulled between two young men? Sarah Beiler's barn was the first to burn, and it was quickly followed by two other barn fires.

It isn't that Lizzie doesn't want to stay Amish. It's just that there is so much to figure out. Like why can't she let her hair a little looser on top? And why can't she wear shoes with a little bit more of a heel? And will she ever really just know for a fact who she is going to marry, like her next-older sister, Emma, does? And how does it happen that her just-younger sister, Mandy, is going on a date before Lizzie ever has a real one?

Fifteen years after leaving her Old Order Amish life, Rachel Mast has returned to Stone Mill, Pennsylvania. Corporate success didn't bring true happiness, but Rachel also knows she can never be Amish again. Instead she runs a B&B and tries to help her community in ways they can't help themselves. But now a gruesome discovery has been made on her Uncle Aaron's cow pasture - the body of prominent Englisher businessman Willy O'Day. Aaron refuses to hire a lawyer, trusting his innocence, and his faith, to see him through. Rachel isn't so sure, especially given the long public feud between the two men.

Someone is shooting horses, and Sadie is determined to find out who it is. That is until she begins to suspect that Mark, her boyfriend, may be involved. Will Sadie discover the truth? Will it be too hard to bear?

Formerly Amish, Tilly Lantz Barrows and her younger sister Ruth Lantz find themselves plagued by the memories of their family's trauma when they return to Eden Valley for their parents' landmark wedding anniversary. Each woman carries a burden of past guilt, unknown to the other, along with unresolved relationships with their six married brothers...and aging parents. Headstrong Tilly urged Ruth to flee the People as well, welcoming her into the fancy English world. Neither had joined the Amish church.

Everything has led up to this moment in Lizzie Glick's life. All of her curiosity, concern, and dreams have pointed to this time when she must make some very big decisions. Will she join the Church? Will she continue teaching? Will she marry Stephen? Questions and indecision as well as answers and certainty enter Lizzie's life in Big Decisions, the third and final novel in this series written by an Amish author and based on true-life experiences.

A young Amish boy ventures from Pennsylvania to California in this richly imagined historical novel from the author of An Unseemly Wife. It's 1867. Growing up among the Pennsylvania Amish, 11-year-old Joshua knows that his father is a respected church deacon who has the ear of God. But he's also seen his father's weakness for drink and borne the brunt of his violent rages. In the aftermath of a disastrous fire, Joshua fears his father's reprimand enough to run away from home.

Katie has always imagined her life being just like Mamm's. It's why she chose baptism and why she'll soon marry Abram Zook. But ever since her twin sister, Hannah, left, the only thing that truly makes Katie smile is the sketchpad in which she indulges her talent for drawing faces - a sin that, if discovered, could get her shunned by her family, her friends, and even Abram. Yet Katie sees her secret pastime as the only way to quiet a growing restlessness she'd just as soon ignore. That is, until their Mamm's untimely death brings Hannah back home to Pennsylvania.

THE PROMISE OF A HOME, THE HEARTBREAK OF AN IMPOSSIBLE LOVE As a budding journalist with a major newspaper, Remy McCallister is eager to prove herself. While investigating an unsolved crime, Remy winds up in the tightly woven Amish community of Lancaster County, the last place she would ever...

Love alone isn’t enough to overcome some obstacles. Lena Kauffman is a young Old Order Amish schoolteacher who has dealt all her life with attention raised by a noticeable birthmark on her cheek. Having learned to move past the stares and whispers, Lena channels her zest for living into her...

In "No Place Like Home", widow Eva Dienner returns home to meet the man her parents always intended for her. After Hurricane Harvey, Sarah Hook returns to the home she fled and back into the arms of Abram King in "When Love Returns". In "The Courage to Stay", Irene Keim seeks a fresh start in the home of her new friends, but when their son comes around, he's determined to push her out. Atlee Shetler is visiting Birch Breek to escape the memories of his late wife and finds the project of renovating a bakery and its owner much more than he's bargained for in "What Love Built". 

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.

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.