After your travels have taken you miles and miles away from the everyday life you know and love, sometimes it just feels good to go back home; and that’s precisely what Beverly Lewis does with her latest novel, The Bridesmaid (Bethany House).
Returning to Lancaster County, the place that kickstarted the whole bonnet fiction craze in the first place with her 1997 best-selling The Shunning, Beverly was excited to revisit the familiar locale.
“Hickory Hollow has been very special—and very real—to my readers and me since the The Shunning. Thanks to the recent Hallmark movie adaptation of that book, as well as the enormously popular The Confession Musical, interest in fictional Hickory Hollow has only grown,” Beverly says. “This new series offers a window into the lives of some of the most memorable characters from The Shunning and its sequels, yet the main characters of each book are new, with compelling stories of their own.”
As part of the aforementioned Home to Hickory Hollow Series, a collection of standalone novels rather than a continuing saga, The Bridesmaid is the story of a young Amish woman who knows all too well about being the bridesmaid, never the bride.
Thankfully, her luck changes when she meets a handsome man named Eben, and the two begin a secret long-distance courtship. Of course, their road to romance is complicated; but that’s precisely what makes The Bridesmaid such an engaging read.
Exploring intriguing questions of how to balance our own dreams with the expectations of people around us, the story has many practical applications involving faith, patience and taking bold steps in life.
Never one to rest on her laurels, Beverly is already hard at work on her next novel, The Guardian, slated for release in April 2013; the movie Beverly Lewis’ The Confession, directed and co-produced by Michael Landon Jr., is set to air on the Hallmark Channel in May 2013.
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2012 issue of FamilyFiction digital magazine. Subscribe for free today!