An excellent story including Amish and English as they mix together in mystery, love, religion, and find their social differences and how to blend all of these together in areas possible. I have read quite a few Amish stories over the past year and I have enjoyed them all, possibly because of the peaceful, but mostly private, lives the Amish live. This story is set in Shipshewana, Indiana, a city that is factual but while the characters are fictional, they represent a cross section of an Amish-English community when the English generally come to the Amish community for mainly business purposes and blend in as well as possible. A wedding is coming up soon to unite Esther and Tobias in marriage and Esther, along with her friend, Deborah and her two children, are riding in their horse-drawn buggy through the area taking in the so well described scenery, all the time discussing the many details of the wedding. Their conversation topic changed abruptly when they found a young girl floating dead in the pond of the property owned by Tobias and his cousin, Reuben. Something had told them to stop their ride and get out and stretch while observing the wonderful nature in the area.
The news of the dead girl got to town requesting the police to come to the pond and investigate. The women that found the body left it in the same position so the police could take it from there. Another person, Trent, a photographer for the local news, also heard the news and of course he had to rush to the scene. Callie, an Englisher, had taken over the Daisy Quilt Shop in town and it was a local gathering place for the women. The news spread. The police arrested Reuben when they found some evidence that implicated him and Rueben would not tell anything about the entire situation. He was in jail until hearings could be held. This sort of infuriated the locals as they knew Rueben would not kill anything or anyone, but the police had no choice since Reuben would do nothing to help himself. When an older gentleman from a nearby city searched for his missing daughter, the police and the people from Shipshewana started to connect their dead girl to this mans search.
This sets the story for you to enjoy. The descriptive phrasing is fantastic throughout the entire book. The characters are very real, both the Amish and the English, as is the blending of their lives together. You will meet many characters, both Amish and English, and into their lives you will go. You will go through an Amish wedding, an English trial of an Amish man, hunts for evidence, chase for some people needed for the trial, learn of the details of a tornado that went through this area years before, use your judgment as to who should marry who, and enjoy the best character in the entire book, Max, Callie's yellow Labrador. Near the end of the book, you will share a running search in a brutal cold rainstorm Enjoy this wonderful story. I sure did!
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