An Amish Family Reunion

Title: AN AMISH FAMILY REUNION
Author: Mary Ellis
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
February 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7369-4487-8
Genre: Inspirational/Amish/women’s fiction

Julia Miller’s children have all grown and have families of their own, but Julia misses the houseful of laughter and joy. She hopes to gather the family for a summer celebration.

Julia’s niece, Phoebe, goes on a rumspringe trip with other Amish youth to Niagara Falls. Her father is initially against the idea, but he relents when he learns the trip is well-chaperoned. It isn’t as well-chaperoned as Phoebe thought, as she as plenty of time with another Amish youth Eli, from another district. Eli is enthralled by Phoebe’s artistic talents, and encourages Phoebe to join him in a venture—he’ll write stories, if she illustrates them. Can their love for literature develop into something that will last forever?

AN AMISH FAMILY REUNION is the next book in Ms. Ellis’ Amish series The Miller Family, but enough information is given about each character that you don’t have to read the previous books, though I’d suggest that you’d want to, to get the full story.

There are many different characters in this book, each of them having a place in the prior books, so you get a lot of continuing stories in AN AMISH FAMILY REUNION. The main story (Eli and Phoebe) is a romance, but the rest of the stories are with married couples and since they make up the majority of the book, I’m classifying it as women’s fiction.

If you like Amish fiction, then you will want to read AN AMISH FAMILY REUNION by Mary Ellis. It is rich in description, leaving you see both the Ohio countryside and Niagara Falls in New York. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Eli and Phoebe’s story and catching up with the other characters. Discussion questions and some yummy sounding recipes are included at the end of the book. $13.99. 303 pages.