From last weekend’s Lancaster Sunday News: And while they generally portray the Amish as admirable for their moral values and way of life, Weaver-Zercher says some challenge the Amish community-focused religious beliefs. This isn’t just her take, but the view of Amish she interviewed, she notes. Say, at a crisis point in the fictional Sadie’s life, she has a feeling of experiencing God directly, outside the…
The Amish heroine lives with her parents, siblings, and widowed aunt on a verdant farm in Lancaster County. Â She is all but betrothed to her suitor, an Amish man whom she does not love. Â Enter a handsome English stranger, an artist who boards with the protagonist’s family to paint the picturesque folk and their surrounding locale. Â Our heroine falls hopelessly in love with him, and…
Valerie Weaver-Zercher is the author of the newly-released Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels.  Valerie is a writer and editor whose work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Mennonite Weekly Review, and other publications. In examining the topics raised in Thrill of the Chaste over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at Amish fiction readers, authenticity, and how readers choose Amish…
I just finished Valerie Weaver-Zercher’s book Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels over the weekend.  We’ll be having a Q-and-A and giveaway for the book soon.  You’ll be able to enter the giveaway in the traditional way by leaving a comment when we run the Q-and-A. For an extra entry today, however, you can suggest a question for Valerie about Amish fiction….
“Are they accurate?” In Thrill of the Chaste, Valerie Weaver-Zercher observes that the question of factual accuracy was the most frequently asked of her during her research. Â It’s one which, she explains in a late chapter of the book, she was reluctant, for various reasons, to address. She does cover the issue in much depth, though. Â One quote in support of Amish fiction authors: Many…
If you were looking for Amish fiction in, say 2002 or 2004, your choice would have been limited to a handful of selections, most by Beverly Lewis or Wanda Brunstetter. Today, you can have your pick of over 60 authors, and well over 250 titles. In the opening pages of Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels, Valerie Weaver-Zercher describes the rapid…
Valerie Weaver-Zercher delves into that question in her new book Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels. Romance is a genre traditionally popular with women, as is Christian inspirational fiction. So it’s no surprise to learn that most readers of Amish fiction books are female.  But what about the men? In Thrill of the Chaste, Valerie shares evidence of male interest in Amish…
Over the past decade, Amish fiction–and in particular the romance novel–has boomed in popularity. Valerie Weaver-Zercher joins us today to discuss the genre, including the history of the Amish romance (not as new as you might think), who reads–and writes–Amish romances, and what Amish think about them. Valerie is a writer and editor whose work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The…
Last Friday Elin left a comment on the post “Do we romanticize the Amish?“: “I have read some of these books and enjoyed them but I have realized that the Amishness of the characters is not more than polish. They are often just stereotypical ‘good Christian’ wearing Amish clothes. They are the same characters as in the Christian inspired fairytales I had as a child…
Okay, we’re going to roll this one out on a trial basis. But who knows, could be interesting. I frequently get Amish-related questions in my email inbox. I do my best to answer but sometimes come up short. So: if you have an Amish-related question you’d like answered, and would prefer a response from an actual Amish person rather than hearing me yap on about…