The Missing

Title: THE MISSING
Author: Beverly Lewis
Publisher: Bethany House
Septempber 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7642-0572-9
Genre: Inspirational/contemporary/Amish

Grace Byler is still struggling to understand why her mother, Lettie, up and disappeared with no warning a month ago. But with life so busy with lambing, gardening, and other chores, she has no hopes of getting away to go looking for her mother. Now their Bishop is talking about putting a shunning on Lettie if she doesn’t return home to her family soon.

Plus, after Grace’s breakup with her fiancé, Henry, another young Amishman, Yonnie, seems to be moving in on her quickly. The trouble is, Grace’s best friend, Becky, imagines herself in love with Yonnie, and he coming around Grace is causing strife in their friendship. Grace is torn. One of her brothers seem to be pushing Yonnie toward her, while the other is angered about her breakup with Henry.

Englisher, Heather is struggling with decisions about her cancer diagnosis. Should she go to a naturalist, or take chemo? Her father is pushing her towards chemo, but since Heather’s mother died of cancer, Heather is determined to do what her mother didn’t.

THE MISSING is book two in Ms. Lewis’ wildly popular Amish series, Seasons of Grace, and I strongly suggest reading book one, The Secret, first, as you will have no idea what happened before hand if you don’t.

Grace, and all the characters, is very real, people you could meet on the street. Plus the setting is so well described, I could almost hear the clomp of the horses on the streets and see the Amish buggies. I am completely unashamed to say that I am Ms. Lewis’ number one fan, I have loved every single one of the books, and THE MISSING is no different. If you like books that wrap up neatly you might want to wait until the final book is out in this series before reading it, but if you don’t mind waiting months between books to read about the ongoing drama, then don’t miss THE MISSING. This is a truly wonderful book. $13.99. 330 pages.