The Judgment and The Mercy

 The Judgment (2011) 324 pages and The Mercy (2011) 303 pages, books 2 and 3 in a trilogy by Beverly Lewis

When a colleague and I wondered what Amish fiction was like, I pulled a Beverly Lewis book from the shelf to read, not realizing it was book 2 in a trilogy. No matter. The Judgment has a prologue that seems to summarize book 1 (The Thorn) just fine. 

Rose grew up in an Amish household. Her best friend was Nick, a boy next door who was a foster child who was never fully accepted by the community, nor by his "brother," the natural born son of the family that fostered him. Nick was blamed for a tragedy that caused the death of Christian, that same brother, and Nick fled the Amish community. Rose was heartbroken by his departure, but tried to move on with her life, including going through the "Singing," a regular Sunday night event for Amish youth who are old enough to be courting. Meanwhile, Rose's older sister, Hen, who is married to a non-Amish man, Brandon, is having a crisis of her own. They were living away from the Amish community and had a small child, Mattie Sue, when Hen started feeling a strong pull back to Amish life. She left her husband to live in a small house on her parents' property with Mattie Sue. Her husband is threatening to divorce her if she doesn't return to their home. 

The Mercy continues the story. Rose and Hen's mother, who has been in great pain as a result of a buggy accident ten years ago, is finally convinced to seek a doctor's help, and after extensive tests, is scheduled for surgery. Just prior to that, a freak accident brings Hen's husband to the Amish community to live with Hen and Mattie Sue as he recovers. Rose tries to move on in her quest for a husband, even as she spends so much time helping her parents with the farm. When Nick returns to the community, everything is shaken up.

If you like soap operas, you'll love these books; the storylines merge surprises with the obvious. There is much more in these stories, arcs that involve the Amish religious hierarchy, for example. The book is a little preachy, being from the Amish point of view, but I learned a few things about Amish lifestyles, and the characters were generally likeable.

The Bromance Book Club

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams (2019) 339 pages

Gavin is a major league baseball player whose marriage is in trouble. Thea, his wife, made an admission to him which crumbled his sexual confidence, and instead of talking, he clammed up. He spent a month in the guest room and finally moved out. She wants a divorce, fed up with the life that baseball wives have to endure, her own dreams deferred, and a husband that has just proven that men cannot be trusted to stay and work things out. Gavin hits bottom, drinking himself into stupidity after moving into a cheap hotel. A group of his baseball team friends intervene. When Gavin tells them that he wants to save his marriage, his friends counsel him to win back his wife using a romance novel as a guide. The novel pivots between Gavin's and Thea's points of view, along with a storyline from a romance novel that Gavin's friends think mirrors the issues in the marriage. The result is a merry-go-round of relationship ups and downs: Will Thea even give Gavin another chance? Will Gavin quit saying things that make the situation worse? Will Thea's sister quit encouraging her to file for divorce? I had to see how it ended.