The Search is a quiet little charmer of a book. A romantic story set in Amish country, The Search is part three in the Lancaster County Secrets series of women’s Christian romance novels. This story centres around two young women, one named Bess and the other Lainey O’Toole. At first it is unclear what the two women might have in common and how their stories are intertwined. Bess is the grandaughter of Bertha Riehl, and she is sent for the summer to Pennsylvania to help care for her grandmother after some surgery has left Bertha in need. Well, the surgery turns out to have been a bit of a stretch and the grandmother, a bit of a scheming puppet-master. Bertha is a comical character who Bess learns to love over the course of the summer. Bess and Bertha and the farmhand Billy will all work together throughout the summer at Rose Hill farm, living off the land and learning how to grow roses. The roses, of course, are a metaphor for the characters within the book, some blooming like Bess, others slowly withering like Simon and Bertha and, yet another group still twinning together like the hybrids Billy has learned to graft into new variations on the traditional flower. Throughout the summer Bertha mischieviously tells Bess she must teach her how to drive a car and repeatedly “borrows” a police car to give her lessons. When Bertha manages to get herself and Bess thrown into jail, her son Jonah must return home. Thus Bertha successfully orchestrates the return of her son Jonah, Bess’s father. Lainey O’Toole has remained in Stoney Ridge following some car troubles. She is an aspiring chef who once lived in Stoney Ridge and didn’t intend to return, but winds up spending far more time there than intended. While she is there revisiting her old home, she is confronted by her past and the choices made so long ago, on a night when Jonah and his young family were involved in a horse and buggy accident just outside Lainey’s old childhood home. When Bertha Riehl’s brother, the drunk Simon, who has been shunned by the Amish community for many years, is near death, Bertha seeks a family member to donate bone marrow. Finding a match for the old miserable Simon starts a whole subplot that will call DNA and lineage into question. When Bess is eventually found to be a perfect match, everybody but Jonah, it seems, understands what that must mean. This is a story well told. Suzanne Woods Fisher has successfully created several strong female characters that really are the heart of this book. The author shows restraint and purpose in capturing the reality of Amish life. Suzanne Woods Fisher is the author of The Choice and The Waiting. I have not read either one of the earlier stories, so I know that this novel can stand on its own, or in the context of the series. Based on how much I enjoyed this story, I would happily choose either of those other books. Getting to know the characters in The Search was enjoyable. The characters are engaging and well rounded and driven by psychological struggles and romantic desires. I found this book to be a nice surprise and truly enjoyed the strong female characters.
The Search by Suzanne Woods Fisher, Jan. 2001, Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, US $14.99, 297 pages with discussion guide.

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I received a copy of this book in order to review it. The opinions in this blog are my own.