The Photograph...Review

About the book:
He studied the picture more closely, finding it curious that the young woman looked so boldly into the camera while wearing a white prayer Kapp shaped like a heart--the characteristic head covering for the Lancaster County Old Order Amish.

Why would a devout girl have her picture taken?

When her sister Lily disappears only months after their widowed mother's passing, Eva Esch fears she has been wooed away from the People. Yet Lily's disappearance isn't Eva's only concern: She and her sisters must relocate once their older brother takes over the family farmhouse. Then Jed Stutzman, an Amish buggy maker from Ohio, shows up in Eden Valley with a photo of a Plain young woman. Eva feels powerfully drawn to the charming stranger--but the woman in the forbidden photograph is no stranger at all. . . .

Beverly Lewis is my favorite Amish author and I was going through my stacks of books and scheduling books/posts and realized that I read this and forgot to write the review.

Eva and her sisters live in their family home after the deaths of their parents. Eva earns extra money selling sweets in her little shop. The girls' overbearing brother wants to move in with his family and push the girls out. In the midst of this, youngest sister Lily runs away.

Newcomer Jed finds a book left on a train and in it, a photo of Lily. As he reads the book and the notes left in the margins by another reader, he imagines the writer to have been Lily. When he meets Eva, he discovers differently.

I enjoy the depth that Beverly brings to her characters. There is usually some sort of conflict between the Amish world and it's English opposite, but Beverly is always respectful. I don't behind to understand the nuances of the Amish faith, but it facinates me.

Thanks to Bethany House and Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book. You can learn more about Beverly Lewis here. You can purchase your own copy here.

Read 9/15

* * * *
4/5 Stars

Comments

  1. My reading and knowledge of the Amish is scant. How they have maintained their lifestyle amongst mainstream America is a wonder to me.

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