A number of years ago I was approached by my editor at Harvest House Publishers and asked to write an Amish book.
“I told the publication committee you wouldn’t do it,” my editor said. “You’ve mentioned to me several times you would never write any more Amish fiction.”
She was right. I had co-authored three books that featured Amish characters for HHP, and they were well received. But they were rollicking wild west stories, not serious Amish fiction. There are a number of authors who write Amish fiction very well, and that’s their niche. I didn’t read much in that genre, and certainly didn’t think I had anything to add to it. So I asked my editor to thank the pub committee and decline the invitation. Ten minutes later my phone rang.
“Please tell me you did NOT just turn down a book contract,” my agent said.
“But they want me to write Amish,” I replied. “I don’t even read Amish, much less write it!”
My agent then delivered a brief lecture on the difficulty of getting book contracts, and the honor being done to me with the invitation, and a number of other things. She ended by saying, “You’re a good writer. You can write a believable Amish character if you want to.”
I took some time to think about it, and then decided my agent was right. (Good agents usually are.) I called my editor back. “I’ll do it,” I told her, “but I don’t want to write a smarmy predictable book where an Amish widower is looking for a new wife to mother his kids.”
“You can write whatever kind of story you want,” she assured me.
So I did. I’d been wanting to take pottery lessons, so I decided that my Amish story would have a pottery element. I dove into the research (my favorite part of writing!) and came up with a story that had teeth. As a result, The Amish Widower is one of the books I’m most proud of. It is definitely not a smarmy, predictable book. In fact, I worried that devoted readers of Amish fiction wouldn’t like it. Imagine my delight when the first review I read began, “This is not your typical Amish novel…” SUCCESS! You can read about the book here.
Why am I telling you this? Because the publisher has put the eBook version of The Amish Widower on sale for just $0.99! The sale ends soon – on June 2 – so hurry and snag your copy wherever you buy eBooks. On Amazon it’s here.