Jorie King has been waiting for Benjamin Zook to return home to Lancaster County so they can marry. When news arrives that Ben has been killed, Jorie finds comfort in the friendship of his brother Caleb. That friendship ripens into love, and it seems that they are meant to be together. But when the unexpected happens, their worlds are turned upside down once more. Will Jorie trust God to lead her into the arms of a new man? A multifaceted story about complex people living the simple life, The Waiting is the second book in the LANCASTER COUNTY SECRETS series. Readers will find themselves transported into the world of the Amish and deeply invested in these wonderful characters.
Suzanne Woods Fisher lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has one husband, four children, one son-in-law, a brand new grandbaby, and a couple of dogs. She graduated from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and was a free-lancer writer for magazines while her children were growing up.
She published her first novel, Copper Star, with a small press. That book won three literary awards and caught the eye of a literary agent, Joyce Hart. Joyce knew that Suzanne had a family connection to the Plain People (Suzanne’s grandfather was raised Plain) and introduced her to an editor at Revell Books.
Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World was the result of that new publishing relationship. It was a finalist for the 2010 ECPA Christian Book of the Year Award. Amish Proverbs: Words of Wisdom from the Simple Life, spun out of Amish Peace and released in August 2010.
The Choice, the first in the Lancaster County Secrets fiction series about the Old Order Amish, is a CBD, CBA and ECPA bestseller, and was the Crossings’ Book Club Main Selection. The Waiting, book #2, a CBD bestseller, just released to rave reviews. And The Search, book #3, will release on January 1, 2011. All three stories are based in Stoney Ridge, a fictitious little town in Pennsylvania, but set in different time periods.
Suzanne has contracts with Revell for six more books about the Amish, both fiction and non-fiction. She is also the host of “Amish Wisdom ” on toginet.com, a weekly radio program featuring guests who are connected to Simple Living.
My Impressions:
Remember whose you are. This is a phrase my husband and I often use on our children. We want them to remember that they are not just our children and should act right, but that they are children of a King, the Almighty God and should live like the believe it. That phrase kept popping into my head while reading Suzanne Woods Fisher’s newest offering, The Waiting. This novel is all about remembering — remembering the good and bad in our past, remembering the commands of God, and remembering whose you are.
Jorie King, a young Amish woman is waiting for the return of the love of her life, Ben Zook, to come home from his service in Vietnam. But the waiting is interrupted by a series of tragedies that hit the Zook family. The waiting takes a different turn for all the characters as they wait for God’s plan to be revealed.
The Waiting is not a page-turner, but a page-savorer (if that’s a word!). A book in which peace resonates throughout. I found even in the tragic events and clashes and conflicts presented in the this novel, an expression of peace — the peace you can only find in God.
The Waiting is a beautifully written story, filled with believable characters, that by the end of the book, you feel are friends. I can’t wait to read the next installment in the Lancaster County Secrets series.
Highly Recommended.
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(I received The Waiting from Litfuse Publicity Group in exchange for a review. The opinions expressed are mine alone.)
Just popping by to say thank you for your thoughtful review of “The Waiting.” So glad you saw the deeper themes in it! I appreciate the time you put into writing up the review–I think it will be one of my favorites!
~Suzanne Woods Fisher
Thanks for your kind words. I loved the book.