Fiction Friday: Amy Clipston

Editor’s Note: It’s Fiction Friday! And Amy Clipston fans, Amish fiction fans, are going to rejoice! Here are some terrific reads for this month. What’s on your bedside table?

The Beloved Hope Chest

The final book in Amy Clipston’s acclaimed Amish Heirloom series — and both a Publishers Weekly and ECPA bestseller!

“Clipston has woven hints of Mattie and Leroy’s history throughout the first three books in this series, leaving her best novel yet to conclude this family’s story of loss, love and hope.” — RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars, TOP PICK!

When Mattie packed her hope chest, she put away the heartache of her past. But as her daughters begin to unpack it, she discovers a healing more powerful than she ever hoped for.

Mattie Fisher’s three daughters know that she’s been keeping a secret from them. With each item pulled from the beloved family hope chest, they’ve discovered a new clue about their mother’s past.

But there’s a reason Mattie has been keeping her history hidden, and she’s not sure she’s ready to reopen old wounds. Will dredging up the past change the way her children view her? Or her marriage to their father? And can she handle the pain of revisiting the memories that preceded the last few happy decades?

Mattie’s story is one of grief and learning to love again. But like the best things preserved in a hope chest, it’s a story of love and redemption born out of heartache — and it’s past time to share it.

“Clipston has written another heartwarming romance, with lifelike characters and a delightfully detailed setting.” — Booklist

“A story of loss and healing, the latest in award winning author Clipston’s Amish Heirloom series creatively balances love, restoration, and second chances with tackling tough issues.” — CBA Market

“Clipston provides a deep, nuanced portrait of… grief and the challenges of trying to move forward in life while buried under pain, fear, anger, and confusion.” — Publishers Weekly

A Dream of Home

When she moves to Amish country to find peace and healing, Madeleine finds a special community — and a special man — who pull her out of her solitude and into a new life.

Moving to Pennsylvania wasn’t in Madeleine’s original plans. She should still be in California and should have married her pilot fiancé a year ago — but death has a way of changing everything. Now the former Air Force flight nurse is living alone in Paradise, Pennsylvania, and working as a maid at the Lancaster Grand Hotel. She isn’t exactly a widow… but she sure feels like one.

Saul Beiler isn’t exactly a widower… but his wife is long gone. His eleven-year-old daughter, Emma, doesn’t know that her mother fled the Amish community — and married another man — but she does know that her dat is lonely, and that a pretty young maedel just moved in next door. Madeleine’s numb heart begins to thaw as she spends more time with the innocent and ever optimistic Emma. The stronger her friendship grows with the young girl, the more intrigued Madeleine grows about the humble, strong man raising her on his own.

But even as a strange attraction pulls Saul and Madeleine across a stark cultural divide, they — and everybody around them — have to wonder: What could they possibly have in common besides heartache? Will love allow Madeleine to finally find the home she’s been dreaming of all along?

A Life of Joy

Lindsay Bedford began her life as an Englischer, but since going to live with her aunt and uncle, she has found peace in the Amish community of Bird-in-Hand. Now that she’s eighteen, she has to figure out where she belongs. As a member of the Amish church? Or in the Englisch world like her older sister?

Eighteen-year-old Lindsay Bedford has reached a crossroads. Should she stay in the small Amish community she’s known and loved for four years or return to the Englisch life of her hometown in Virginia where her older sister is a college student? An extended visit to Virginia might just tip the scales as Lindsay reconnects with friends, joins a new church, works on her GED, and is pressured by her sister to stay and “make something of herself.”

Will Lindsay leave her aunt Rebecca and become Englisch or settle in Bird-in-Hand and join the Amish church?

Take a trip to Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, where you’ll meet the delightful women of the Kauffman Amish Bakery in Lancaster County. As each woman’s story unfolds, you will share in her joys, dreams… and secrets. You’ll discover the simplicity of the Amish lifestyle and, most importantly, you will be encouraged by the hope and faith of these women, and the importance they place on their families.

A Season of Love

Three young women are about to change their lives: Lizzie Anne and Samuel have decided to get married, and Lindsay is about to be baptized into the Amish faith and is being courted by Matthew. While Katie Kauffman is happy for her friends who seem to have settled their futures, she is also finding herself something of a fifth wheel.

When Lindsay’s sister Jessica returns to Bird-in-Hand, she finds that Jake Miller has moved on with his life. He lost hope that Jessica would ever be satisfied to settle in rural Pennsylvania and takes comfort in becoming close friends with Katie. However, it’s not an easy road as Jake is Mennonite and Katie has just been baptized. Her father forbids them to see each other, adamant that his daughter marry an Amish man.

Take a trip to Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, where you’ll meet the delightful women of the Kauffman Amish Bakery in Lancaster County. As each woman’s story unfolds, you will share in her joys, dreams… and secrets. You’ll discover the simplicity of the Amish lifestyle and, most importantly, you will be encouraged by the hope and faith of these women, and the importance they place on their families.

Seasons of an Amish Garden

Young Amish couples tend to a community garden and harvest friendships and love along the way in this new story collection by bestselling author Amy Clipston.

Spring Is in the Air: As the young people of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, plant a garden in memory of their friend, Katie Ann begins to worry that her older brother, Ephraim, is dating her best friend. What if she somehow loses them both? But Christian, a new boy in the community, also works in the garden — and falling for him may be exactly the distraction, and lesson, that Katie Ann needs.

Home by Summer: Clara Hertzler is surprised when Jerry Petersheim, her old friend, comes to the garden to drop off his younger sister — especially because Jerry has been gone for years, and now seems to be living as an Englisher. As the friends get to know each other again, Clara pushes Jerry to examine why he abandoned his Amish beliefs. Will Clara help Jerry renew his faith in God, and will they find love beneath the summer sun?

The Fruits of Fall: Tena Speicher has come to live in Bird-in-Hand after her fiancé left her for an English woman. When a stranger comes to the fruit stand one day and asks for food, Tena is not sure how to respond — but Wayne intervenes and offers to let him stay in the barn. Afraid to trust Englishers, Tena must learn, with Wayne’s help, that everyone is a child of God and deserving of kindness.

Winter Blessings: Ephraim and Mandy have dated for some time and now have plans to marry. But after a series of unexpected events and misunderstandings, they wonder if they should go their separate ways. What will happen when their friends at the Amish garden conspire to bring them back together?

Each story in this sweet, contemporary collection can be read as a standalone, but the stories are best enjoyed together. Book length: approximately 95,000 words. Also includes a reading group guide and an Amish glossary.

“One story slides into the next, woven together effortlessly with the author’s knowledge of the Amish life. Once started, you can’t put this book down.” — Suzanne Woods Fisher, bestselling author of The Devoted