Book Review: The Search

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-twenties, 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.

Bess Reihl is less than thrilled to be spending the summer at Rose Hill Farm with her large and intimidating grandmother, Bertha. It quickly becomes clear that she is there to work the farm–and work hard. The labor is made slightly more tolerable by the time it affords Bess to spend with the handsome hired hand, Billy Lapp. But he only has eyes for a flirty and curvaceous older girl.

Lainey’s and Bess’s worlds are about to collide.  The secrets that come to light will shock them both.

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 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.

Keep up on Suzanne’s latest news on Facebook, Twitter and on her blog!

My Impressions:

The Search is the 3rd offering by Suzanne Woods Fisher in the Lancaster County Secrets series. The first two books – The Choice and The Waiting – were excellent.  So is The Search! Bertha Riehl is a force to be reckoned with.  She puts into motion a series of events that lead to secrets being revealed, relationships restored and wounds healed.  Throughout this novel 2 verses of scripture kept coming to my mind:

The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

The characters in The Search learn the truth of these verses the hard way, not unlike most believers in real life.  That’s what makes Fisher’s books so good — the characters and situations are believable.  And they share the lessons of God’s grace, sovereignty, mercy and redemption.

I mentioned above the character of Bertha Riehl — a large woman (she says she is 5’12”) with the demeanor of a task master, but with a soft heart filled with compassion.  She is my favorite from all the books in the series.  You will fall in love with her no nonsense ways, her mixed up English phrases, and her devotion to family and God.

Pick up The Search and enjoy!  And while you are at it pick up the others in the series if you haven’t already.  You won’t be disappointed.

Highly Recommended.

See what others on the tour are saying.  Click here.

And Don’t miss the big iPad giveaway!  Click here.

(I received The Search from LitFuse in return for an honest review.  The opinions expressed are mine alone.)