All My Amish Children?

Turns out, Amish fiction is a bit "sudsier" than I expected.  A bit of background--I am part of a group for librarians in the north suburbs that try to expand our knowledge of genre reading in order to help patrons.  Because of this, I read one book a month that tends to be part of a genre I have never read before.  For February, we were asked to read a book in the popular new "Bonnet Fiction" genre.  What is bonnet fiction you ask?  Bonnet fiction is Christian fiction that focuses specifically on the Amish community.  You didn't know this was popular??  Well, it is shockingly popular!  I don't know ANYTHING about the popular authors in this subgenre, so I did a little research and grabbed a couple books off the shelf.  I ended up choosing the book The Choice by Suzanne Woods Fisher.  Honestly, I chose it partly because of it's nice cover. 

The Choice is about an Amish girl named Carrie who is pretty, smart, sensible and madly in love with the Amish rebel.  As most loves often do, this first romance takes a rough turn and Carrie is left behind in the community to figure out what to do with her life.  Without giving away too much,  Carrie deals with death of family and encounters no less than three potential loves through the course of the book.  I hate that I can't say much more than that but this book has more twists than your daytime soap opera! There is romance, lust (toned down of course), mystery, evil backstabbing stepmothers, saucy Englishers (those people outside of the Amish community), death, and Pennsylvanian Dutch! 

I'll admit, I wasn't too excited about reading this.  I don't tend to enjoy the "cozy" books and I also shy away from books that talk about God.  The Choice managed to have a softer tone but still keep my attention with the "who is she going to love?!?!" thoughts and include talk about God without being preachy.  I flew through this book! I'm actually debating reading another one to see if it's just as entertaining!

If they ever want to make a movie about The Choice, I'm recommending the cast of All My Children...I've got it all planned out...