Any Christian fiction readers aboard?

[Beeyotch]

Okay, I give, manx was right, we are being kinda mean betches.

[WhoAmI]

If you look up Amish fiction on Amazon, you get stuff like this:

[Beeyotch]

Okay I found one:

Forgiven, Sisters of the Heart Series #3
Shelley Shepard Gray
Retail Price: $12.99
CBD Price: $9.99
Buy 68 or more of this product and pay only $9.49 each.
( In Stock )

Excerpt

Shelley Shepard Gray's Sisters of the Heart Series continues with Forgiven. New levels of healing reach the Amish community in the lives of Winnie and her brother Jonathan. First, Jonathan is heartbroken when his barn burns down---it's been in the family for generations. When Winnie stumbles upon a clue, she must decide what to do. Should she confront the culprit? And if Jonathan finds out, will he be able to forgive? Injured in the fire, Winnie is confined to the hospital for weeks. While there she reconnects with her childhood friend Samuel Miller, a professor and researcher at the local university. Will their mutual respect for one another become something more? Don't miss the conclusion to the Sisters of the Heart series.

[WhoAmI]

Contemporary Amish fiction gains a following
By Eric Gorski
Associated Press / July 17, 2009

DENVER - The Christian book business, optimistic that a little literary escapism might be an antidote for readers in hard times, is turning to bonnets, buggies, and bloodsuckers.

Even as Christian publishing suffers during the recession - one study found net sales for Christian retailers were down almost 11 percent in 2008 - several publishing houses are adding or expanding their fiction lines with both the tame (Amish heroines) and boundary-pushing (Christian vampire lit).

The undisputed industry leader is so-called Amish fiction - typically, romances and family sagas set in contemporary Amish communities. They’re a surprise hit with evangelical women attracted by a simpler time, curiosity about cloistered communities, and admiration for the strong, traditional faith of the Amish.

The success of the genre has spawned not just new Amish fiction authors but spinoff series about other cloistered communities. If you want to sell it, as one literary agent put it, put a bonnet on it.

But not all new Christian fiction is prairie wholesome. There’s building buzz - and some trepidation - about upcoming titles that bring a Christian perspective to tales of vampires and the undead.

Publishers, authors, and others gathered in Denver recently for the annual International Christian Retail Show agree that there’s a growing audience for Christian fiction that both comforts and challenges, now more than a decade after the apocalyptic “Left Behind’’ series took Christian fiction out of obscurity and onto Walmart shelves and the New York Times bestseller list.

“If you look at ‘Left Behind,’ the moon turns to blood and one-third of the people die,’’ said Karen Watson, an associate publisher at Tyndale House, which published the series. “Or you have people with bonnets on drawing water from the well. It just tells me there are a wide range of things you can talk about, and Christian books can be a lot of things.’’

Christian fiction often has mimicked successful genres, including romance, sci-fi, and legal thrillers. But in Amish fiction, Christian publishing has something it can genuinely claim as its own.

Much of the credit goes to Beverly Lewis, a Colorado author who gave birth to the genre in 1997 with “The Shunning,’’ loosely based on her grandmother’s experience of leaving her Mennonite upbringing to marry a Bible college student. The book has sold more than 1 million copies.

Lewis tapped into a fascination with the Amish, who base their morals on a literal interpretation of the Bible and are known for their plain clothes and rejection of modern technology.

“For every lineup of Amish women at a gathering of any kind, you’ll always see one of them that has her hand kind of on her hip,’’ said Lewis, who grew up a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter in Pennsylvania Amish country. “That’s my character. She’s the one that’s pushing boundaries.’’

Wanda Brunstetter, who is probably No. 2 to Lewis on the Amish fiction roster, said readers are looking not only for escape but also lessons during tough economic times.

“People are learning from the Amish novels how they can simplify and set their priorities straight,’’ Brunstetter, who writes Amish romance novels.

Lewis’s publisher, Bethany House, which specializes in historical fiction, has published Puritan and Shaker stories.

Next spring it will release fiction about the Amana Colonies of Iowa, where German pietists lived communally until the mid-1930s, said Steve Oates, vice president of sales and marketing.

“Historical fiction is a great way to have a nice clean story when a certain set of values didn’t seem out of place,’’ Oates said.

Mindy Starns Clark, an author of mysteries scrubbed clean of foul language and premarital sex for a Christian audience, set her latest novel, “Shadows of Lancaster County,’’ in Amish country.

“It’s got a buggy on the cover,’’ said Clark, who emphasized that she picked the setting before Amish books became a Christian publishing sensation. “But it’s also got genetic engineering. It’s definitely not your grandmother’s Amish novel.’’

Amish fiction gains a following - The Boston Globe

[witchcurlgirl]

I wonder if it's not sort of exploitative though, because many Amish can't read fiction, it's forbidden.

I had a cousin come visit when we were young teens, she's from LaJolla CA and had never been to NY. We were walking around and she saw a Hasid, grabbed my hand and asked 'Is that man Amish?'. My friends and I laughed about that all day.

[twitchy2.0]

So they're not actually written by Amish. What do the Amish make of this?

Damn simulposting!

[Beeyotch]

Verboten!

[witchcurlgirl]

Originally Posted by Beeyotch

Okay, I give, manx was right, we are being kinda mean betches.

yes, but really more about the genre than to zigzag

[shedevilang]

I actually read the entire Left Behind series and liked them the movies blowed big time though. As for ya'll being "mean" wtf else is new?

[sputnik]

Originally Posted by witchcurlgirl

I had a cousin come visit when we were young teens, she's from LaJolla CA and had never been to NY. We were walking around and she saw a Hasid, grabbed my hand and asked 'Is that man Amish?'. My friends and I laughed about that all day.

[Penny Lane]

They're No Bodice Rippers, But Amish Romances Are Hot
'Bonnet Novels' Sell Like Shoofly Pie; Mrs. Smoker Lives the Life and Is Skeptical
By ALEXANDRA ALTER

NEWBURG, Pa. -- Rachel Esh, owner of an Amish dry-goods store here, was giddy as customers kept arriving. Cars spilled out of the dirt parking lot onto the hay and potato fields, crushing a few of her neighbor's potatoes.

She ushered the crowd of 40 people swarming in front of her cash register into a line that snaked out the door of Rachel's Country Store. The cause of the commotion: novelist Cindy Woodsmall, who had stopped by to autograph books.

Ms. Woodsmall writes "bonnet books," or Amish love stories, which are a booming new subcategory of the romance genre. The books, written by non-Amish writers, are aimed at a mainstream audience. But Ms. Woodsmall researches her stories among the Pennsylvania Amish, and she has a loyal Amish following.

The plot of her 2006 novel, "When the Heart Cries," revolves around Hannah, a young Amish woman who falls in love with a Mennonite and hides her plans to marry him from her strict parents. The lovers struggle to overcome the cultural divide, and actually kiss a couple of times in 326 pages: "His warm, gentle lips moved over hers, and she returned the favor, until Hannah thought they might both take flight right then and there. Finally desperate for air, they parted."

"I can't stop reading them," said Mary Ann Blank, an Amish woman with a wide smile and graying hair she wears neatly parted under her prayer cap. She clutched her signed copy of the third book in Ms. Woodsmall's "Sisters of the Quilt" series, published by WaterBrook Press, a Random House imprint. "I usually better not start in the morning because then I sit around too long," she added.

Most bonnet books are G-rated romances, often involving an Amish character who falls for an outsider. Publishers attribute the books' popularity to their pastoral settings and forbidden love scenarios à la Romeo and Juliet. Lately, the genre has expanded to include Amish thrillers and murder mysteries. Most of the authors are women.

Beverly Lewis, who sets her novels among the Amish in Pennsylvania, has sold 13.5 million copies of her books. Wanda Brunstetter's novels take place in Amish communities in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania, and have sold more than four million copies. Publishing house Thomas Nelson plans to release five Amish novels this fall, and six more in 2010.

Barnes & Noble book buyer Jane Love said Amish novels currently account for 15 of the chain's top 100 religious fiction titles. "It's almost like you put a person with a bonnet or an Amish field in the background and it automatically starts to sell well," Ms. Love said.

The explosion of Amish fiction has drawn mixed reactions within Amish communities. Emma Smoker, 39, who was selling homemade pies -- apple, blueberry and shoofly -- in front of Rachel's, said the books don't interest her.

"I live the Amish life -- I don't need to read about it," said Mrs. Smoker, who is the sister of store owner Rachel Esh. From what her friends tell her, she added, the books "aren't quite true to life."

Ms. Esh said some Amish customers snap up the Amish fiction she stocks, but others tell her they don't like the way the books portray the community.

"There will always be people who say we're getting too exposed," said Ms. Esh, a 48-year-old member of the local Old Order Amish community.

Old Order Amish shun modern technologies such as electricity and TV, forbid members to own cars and computers, and speak Pennsylvania Dutch, a German dialect. They sew their own clothes and try to lead simple lives based on faith and community. The U.S. Amish population has more than doubled in the past 18 years, growing to about 233,000, largely because of high birth rates. About 85% of Amish teenagers, given the choice, end up joining these communities.

While there are no religious strictures against contemporary novels, the church has traditionally viewed fiction as distracting and deceitful, says Donald Kraybill, a senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, a religious studies center at Elizabethtown College.

Some Amish have nevertheless become avid fans. An Amish woman in Lancaster told Ms. Lewis that "all the women in our church district are reading your books under the covers, literally," Ms. Lewis said. Ms. Brunstetter, who lives in Tacoma, Wash., said several Amish families in northern Indiana have played host to book signings in their homes for her "Sisters of Holmes County" series.

Beth Graybill, director of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, said many Amish novels present a distorted, soap-opera version of Amish life. Outside authors exaggerate the wild activities during Rumspringa, the period when Amish teenagers experiment with technology and worldly distractions, from about the age of 16 until they decide to join the church or leave the community, Ms. Graybill said. Buggy accidents, and romances between Amish youngsters and outsiders, are also far less common than the books suggest, she said.

Ms. Woodsmall -- whose four books have sold about 134,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan -- sets her stories in contemporary Amish communities around Pennsylvania. A stay-at-home mother turned novelist, Ms. Woodsmall, 50, says the plot for her first series popped into her head about 10 years ago while she was cooking dinner. She began researching Amish beliefs and formed a relationship with a Pennsylvania Amish family after a mutual acquaintance introduced them. The couple, Miriam and Daniel Flaud, have six children and three grandchildren and live on a 150-acre plot of farmland with corn, hay, alfalfa and soybeans. Ms. Woodsmall, who lives outside Atlanta, visits them once or twice a year and mails her manuscripts to Mrs. Flaud, who, as a favor, checks them for mistakes.

Mrs. Flaud often catches simple errors, such as characters riding bicycles -- most Pennsylvania Amish ride scooters -- or a mangled bit of Pennsylvania Dutch. Other times, Mrs. Flaud has suggested adding or rewriting scenes. When an Amish character in Ms. Woodsmall's fourth novel, "Hope of Refuge," was shunned for allowing a non-Amish woman to stay in his home, Mrs. Flaud suggested the author include the bishop's perspective to show that shunning is not taken lightly. Ms. Woodsmall wrote a scene that included the church leader's point of view.

Mrs. Flaud said she enjoys helping with the books and finds the plots gripping. "You get hooked," she said. Still, she is wary of upsetting her community and is selective about what she tells Ms. Woodsmall. For example, she doesn't provide details about religious rituals such as wedding ceremonies, which are considered sacred.

During a recent visit, Ms. Woodsmall sat on a swing outside the Flauds' 133-year-old farmhouse and peppered them with questions for her sequel to "The Hope of Refuge."

"This is one of those questions I hate to ask," said Ms. Woodsmall. One of her characters, a schoolteacher, wants to modernize some aspects of Amish education. "What are some things she might want to change?" Ms. Woodsmall asked.

The Flauds' 13-year-old daughter, Amanda, piped up. "The bathrooms," she said, explaining that many students at her school wanted to replace outhouses with indoor plumbing.

Some of her inquiries drew a blank. The Flauds couldn't come up with Amish expressions for the word "quirky" or the phrase "women's rights."

Soon, it was time for the book signing at Rachel's Country Store. Ms. Woodsmall greeted fans, most of them "Englishers," or non-Amish, and signed about 250 books. Miriam and Daniel Flaud stood nearby, watching as Englishers snapped Ms. Woodsmall's photo with cellphone cameras.

They're No Bodice Rippers, But Amish Romances Are Hot - WSJ.com

No indoor plumbing but they can come up with fake fireplaces and PG smut?

[shedevilang]

LMAO Penny those fake fireplaces kill me

[Penny Lane]

Yea.. and the fuckers totally lie, too.. they aren't free, you have to buy the handcrafted wooden mantle or something.

[scooter]

Now you ran poor Zigzag off. She just asked a question.

[twitchy2.0]

She's not poor though if the other thread is to be believed.