Friday, December 12, 2014

The Bachelor by Stephanie Reed (book review)

The Bachelor

Book Two of Plain City Peace

By Stephanie Reed

(received in exchange for an honest review)

The Bachelor-001

Genre- Fiction / Amish 

Published by- Kregel Publications

Copyrighted- 2014

Number of pages- 253

Age Group- Adult

Description of book- paperback, listed price- $14.99, ISBN 978-0-8254-4216-2

The Bachelor, by Stephanie Reed, is the second book in the Plain City Peace series.  Betsie Troyer is asked to take care of Shelia, the young girl from the English family she lived with, while Shelia's father goes to find her mother.  Betsie does not know what to do, but decides to take her in.  Betsie hopes that her sister, Sadie, and Charley Yoder, a man she has promised herself to understands. 

They do not understand and Betsie cannot turn to her parents, because they have left the Amish ways.  Betsie does what she thinks is best and goes through each day in the best way she can. 

Will her family understand and accept what she is doing?  Will her relationship with Charley be ruined, since she is taking care of someone who is English.  Why is she thinking of Shelia's brother, Michael, so much?

Read an excerpt.

About the Author-

Stephanie Reed currently lives in Ohio, near the site of an Amish community.  She gets her ideas from Ohio.

My thoughts-

I thought The Bachelor, by Stephanie Reed, was unlike most of the Amish themed books that I have read in the past.  This book had a lot more depth and character development.  I felt like I really knew Betsie Troyer and Shelia (young English girl). 

I have never read any Amish book where the Amish take care of the English.  It was very brave of Betsie to take care of Shelia.  Betsie lived in a stricter Ordnung, so I was surprised when the bishop did nothing.  I was not surprised by the end of the book, the bishop was unlike most bishops.  (I will not spoil the surprise though.)  Reed did a good job portraying Christian life through Shelia.  Shelia was a preteen, but she was a stronger Christian than most adult Christians.  She is someone we should all try to be, for example she was very forgiving of Abijah and Sadie when they were mean to her.

The one thing I would add to this book would be a glossary for the Amish words.  I think I figured most of them out from the context of the sentence, but I'm not sure.  I thought the discussion questions were really good.  I learned more about the Amish, 1970's, and Christianity when I read and answered the questions.

I enjoyed reading this book and I am looking forward to reading book three, The Bride.  I would recommend this book to others.  If you have not read the first book in the series, The Bargain (I had not), that is fine.  I found that I was not missing anything.

Disclosure of Material Connection- I received The Bachelor, by Stephanie Reed, for free from the Kregel Publications’ Blog Tour.  All links were current when posted.  I was not required to write a positive review.  The opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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