Book Review: The Waiting by Suzanne Woods Fisher

About the book:

From author Suzanne Woods Fisher, who has written extensively about the Amish in books like Amish Peace and Amish Proverbs, comes The Waiting, an endearing fictional story about an Amish girl, looking for love.

Jorie King has been waiting for Benjamin Zook to return home to Lancaster County so they can marry. When news arrives that Ben has been killed, Jorie finds comfort in the friendship of his brother Caleb. That friendship ripens into love, and it seems that they are meant to be together. 

But when the unexpected happens, their worlds are turned upside down once more. Will Jorie trust God to lead her into the arms of a new man?

A multifaceted story about complex people living the simple life, The Waiting is the second book in the Lancaster County Secrets series. Readers will find themselves transported into the world of the Amish and deeply invested in these wonderful characters.

My thoughts:

Amish fiction has become such a popular genre that it's becoming more difficult for authors to come up with clever plots for this simple society.  The good news is that Suzanne Woods Fisher doesn't have that problem.  The Waiting was one of the best Amish books I've read in a very long time, and my eyes were glued to every single page.  


This was a tough book to read right from the very beginning because of the grief that Caleb and Jorie were experiencing.  This opening was very similar to the first book in the series, The Choice, where the heroine of that story dealt with 3 deaths and a marriage in a very small span of time.  By comparison in The Waiting, Caleb lost his wife and his brother, Ben, with his wife telling him on her death bed that she felt Jorie would be the perfect wife for him.  Then there's Jorie, who has waited for Ben since he left their community to go to Vietnam.  She has endured the talk of her possible spinster future, but her heart has never belonged to anyone else.  


While I felt that the opening sequence of events was a little dramatic, I think that's what kept me furiously turning the pages.  Another thing that I really liked was that this was a historical Amish story set during the Vietnam War.  There wasn't much mention of the war since the Amish are Pacifists, but the war setting, along with the mention of some of the medical treatments that were present back then, really added a lot to the overall story.


Even though this book is the second book in the Lancaster County Secrets series, it can be read as a stand-alone novel since none of the characters from book one present themselves in this book.  Suzanne has created a lovely series with these two books, and I'm anxious to see how she wraps things up with the final book coming out next year entitled The Search.


4 Stars


**Many thanks to Revell books for providing a copy for review.