The Photograph 

Paperback, hardcover, ebook 

September 8, 2015

by Beverly Lewis

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bethany House Publishers 
• ISBN-13: 978-0764212475

He studied the picture more closely, finding it curious that the young woman looked so boldly into the camera while wearing a white prayer Kapp shaped like a heart--the characteristic head covering for the Lancaster County Old Order Amish. 

Why would a devout girl have her picture taken?

When her sister Lily disappears only months after their widowed mother's passing, Eva Esch fears she has been wooed away from the People. Yet Lily's disappearance isn't Eva's only concern: She and her sisters must relocate once their older brother takes over the family farmhouse. Then Jed Stutzman, an Amish buggy maker from Ohio, shows up in Eden Valley with a photo of a Plain young woman. Eva feels powerfully drawn to the charming stranger--but the woman in the forbidden photograph is no stranger at all. . . .

My thoughts:  I fell in love with Amish fiction, as most fans did, by reading Beverly Lewis. I greatly looked forward to THE PHOTOGRAPH although lately Ms. Lewis has been more miss than hit with me.  This one has a unique plot. An Amish man falling in love with an Amish girl via a photograph and a children's book, but it worked. The hero and heroine were apart most of the book, only together a week, but he spent most of it trying to reconcile the girl in the photograph with the girl in real life.  

This book was rather flat, one dimensional. It took ages for me to read through this book when usually I can't put Ms. Lewis's books down. However, the ending was rather engaging and tied it together nicely. There are some familiar  characters from other books in this story though it does stand alone.  I would've loved to have loved this story as I have some of her others but I am only going with 3 stars. It isn't her best work.