Central Kansas Library System

Hannah has put everything into building up her family’s homestead in North Dakota. Despite the Great Depression, unpredictable weather, and unforgiving landscape, she and her new husband Jerry stay on even after their Amish friends and family move back east. When a plague of grasshoppers destroys every last morsel of vegetation after yet another drought, Hannah and Jerry return to the fertile soil of Pennsylvania, where life will be safe and predictable....

Hester, the startlingly beautiful Native American who was rescued as an infant by an Amish couple, now lives in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She shares a house with Bappie King, another Amish woman, living their independent lives in the fast-growing mid-18th-century city. Bappie runs a highly successful stand at the downtown farmers market; Hester is Bappies assistant when she isnt out in the city nursing desperately sick children and their impoverished...

"Fires have destroyed two more nearby Amish barns, and many of the farmers are ready to ask for police protection, an unheard of action. Davey Beiler, the leader of the local Amish community, counsels against this, but then his beloved daughter, Sarah, is caught in the flames and severely injured"--

Sarah Beiler grows increasingly concerned about Ashley, her friend who also works at the farmers market. Ashley acts strange, even nervous, when anyone talks about the rash of fires. When Sarah asks her what she knows, Ashley only heightens Sarah's suspicions. But that is not Sarah's only trouble. She remains distracted by Matthew Stoltzfus, who says that God is calling him to leave the Amish community. When he begs her to join him, Sarah's heart...

"Liz had been in love once, had even been engaged. In fact, the wedding had been planned, the barn cleaned, and the celery was set to be harvested to make the traditional wedding soup. Just two weeks before the day she was to exchange vows with her beloved, he changed his mind, and that was that. The humiliation was almost as bad as the heartbreak. The whole community had celebrated her engagement, had participated in the wedding planning, had started...

"The Witnesses is the third novel in Amish novelist, Linda Byler's current series, "Lancaster Burning." Byler takes readers inside the home of the leader of the local Amish community, Davey Beiler, who finds himself at the center of mounting fear and controversy. Fires have destroyed two more nearby Amish barns, and many of the farmers are ready to ask for police protection, an unheard of action. Beiler counsels against this, but then his beloved...