So I started a new adventure at work and hosted my first Inspirational Fiction Book Club meeting today! I inherited this book club and I think the delightful attendees could run it without me which is perfectly fine. I really enjoyed the book club although the book wasn’t my favorite. (This might be due to my general aversion to all things Amish Fiction, not the actual quality of the book which is probably pretty good.) We discussed Return to Grace by Karen Harper. It is a mystery set in Ohio’s Amish Country. (Go figure, mysteries aren’t my favorite either so there you go.) The mystery was good, and the content a little edgier than you typically find in Amish fiction, but not too much so. I would recommend this for those that want to try Amish fiction, but are more turned off by the overtly religious aspects. The interactions between the Amish and “English” characters are interesting and the themes of forgiveness and being true to yourself run throughout the story.
Hannah Esh fled the Home Valley Amish community with a broken heart, throwing herself into her worldly dreams of a singing career instead. But as much as she tries to run from her past, something keeps pulling her back. On a whim, she brings four worldly friends to the Amish graveyard near her family’s home for a midnight party on Halloween. But when shots are fired and one of her friends is killed, Hannah is pulled back into the world of her past.
The investigation into the shooting uncovers deep-buried secrets that shock the peaceful Amish village to its core. Determined to prove her value to the community she left behind, Hannah attempts to bridge two cultures, working closely with both handsome, arrogant FBI agent Linc Armstrong and her former betrothed, Seth Lantz, now widowed with a young daughter.
Caught between Seth and Linc, between old and new, Amish and worldly, Hannah must choose her future. Unless a killer, bent on secrecy, chooses it for her.
ADDLibrarian 