Introduction

Fifteen years ago, Lainey O'Toole made a split-second decision. She couldn't have known that her choice would impact so many. Now in her mid-twenties, she is poised to go to culinary school when her car breaks down in Stoney Ridge, the very Amish town in which her long-reaching decision was made, forcing her to face the shadowed past.

Bess Reihl is less than thrilled to be spending the summer at Rose Hill Farm with her large and intimidating grandmother, Bertha. It quickly becomes clear that she is there to work the farm--and work hard. The labor is made slightly more tolerable by the time it affords Bess to spend with the handsome hired hand, Billy Lapp. But he only has eyes for a flirty and curvaceous older girl.

Lainey's and Bess's worlds are about to collide and the secrets that come to light will shock them both.

Beautifully written, The Search is a skillfully woven story that takes readers through unexpected twists and turns on the long country road toward truth. Fans both old and new will find themselves immersed in this heartwarming--and surprising--tale of young love, forgiveness, and coming to grips with the past.

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Excerpt

It was a June morning, hazy with summer’s heat, and Billy

Lapp was already bone tired. Only one person on earth

could wear out an eighteen-year-old farm boy, and Billy

happened to be her hired hand. For over two weeks now, Bertha

Riehl had met him at the barn door of Rose Hill Farm with a

to-do list that seemed to grow longer with each passing hour.

Bertha’s granddaughter, Bess, was coming for a summer visit, and

Bertha wanted the farm so spic-and-span clean a body could eat

off the barn floor. Which, Billy knew, meant he would be the one

scrubbing that barn floor until it shone.

He didn’t know why Bertha felt her farm needed sprucing up.

So sauwer wie gschleckt. It was as clean as a whistle. The vegetable

garden ran neat and tidy from the kitchen steps down to the

greenhouse, beside the yard where she stretched her clothesline.

Why, hardly a rose petal dared to wilt without Bertha flying out

to the fields with a pair of pruning shears in her big hands. And

besides that, folks visited each other all the time. But then Billy

remembered that something was not quite right between Bertha

and Jonah, her son, Bess’s father. He had left years before. Billy

didn’t know what had caused the rift, but he knew enough not

to ask. Bertha could be private like that, keeping her business

to herself.

“Could you tell me something about Bess?” Billy had asked

Bertha the other day as he helped her turn the mattress in the

spare bedroom she was readying for Bess.

Bertha flipped her end of the mattress and let it slip into the

wooden bed frame with a soft sough. “Like what?”

“Well, how old is Bess now?” He vaguely remembered a towheaded,

skinny wisp of a girl coming in from Ohio a few years

back when Samuel, Bertha’s husband, passed.

Bertha raised an eyebrow at him, as if she thought his motives

were highly suspect. “Old enough,” she said, lifting her big chin.

“But too young for you.”

Billy sputtered. “I wasn’t asking for that. Besides, me and

Betsy—” He stopped abruptly. He knew how Bertha Riehl felt

about his Betsy Mast, and he didn’t want another lecture about

thinking with your head and not your nether regions, a comment

at which he took offense. But that was Bertha Riehl for you. She

didn’t mince words and she didn’t hold back her opinions. And

she had plenty of both.

On this sunny day, Bertha handed him a broom. “When you’re

done sweeping out the hay loft, you need to clean out the ashes

in the chimbley place.” She bent over to pick up her favorite

rooster, a fourteen-year-old leghorn named Otto, who followed

her around the farm. Bertha tucked Otto under her arm, footballstyle,

and headed up the hill to the farmhouse. Her left side was

flanked by Boomer, a big black dog who had appeared one day

and never left.

“You gonna finally cook that ol’ rooster for dinner, Bertha?”

Billy said, grinning.

shoulder, stroking Otto’s feathers like he was a pampered housecat.

Bertha was always threatening Otto was going to end up as

Sunday’s stew, but Billy knew better. Bertha Riehl was all bluff

and bluster. Well, mostly bluff and bluster. He couldn’t deny she

had a way of intimidating folks that was a wonder to behold. It

had happened to Billy only once, when he made the mistake of

asking her if she was six feet tall. Bertha planted her fists on her

deluxe-sized hips and narrowed her eyes at him. “I am five feet

twelve inches.” Then she stared him down until he was sure he

had shrunk an inch or two, right in front of her.

From the kitchen door of the sprawling brick-and-frame

farmhouse, Bertha turned and hollered at Billy. “Es is noch lang

net faercih wann’s yuscht halwe gedus is!” Half done is far from

done!

He dashed into the barn and picked up where he left off,

sweeping the concrete floor with a dash and a fury. One thing to

be grateful for, he thought as hay and dust flew up around him,

the day of Bess’s arrival had finally come. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the Publisher:

1. Conflict and reconciliation are central themes in The Search.
Discuss the ways in which the characters come to peace
with their past.

2. What kind of a woman was Bertha Riehl? As you were
reading, what was your reaction to her? Did your opinion
change over time?

3. As Jonah puts Bess on the bus to go to Stoney Ridge, he
tells her, “Be careful because—”
Bess teased him that each time he said goodbye to her,
even as she hopped on the school bus, he would add
the caution, “Be careful, because . . .” Because . . . I won’t
be there to protect you. Because . . . accidents happen.
What is Jonah really afraid of? How does he finally come
to terms with that fear?

4. In one scene with her two visiting friends, Lainey defends
her decision not to go to culinary school, as she had planned.
“I’ve learned more about cooking in the last few months
here than I ever could in a formal school. Here, food means
more than nourishing a body. Sharing a meal nourishes a
community.” What did she mean by that? In what ways is
the Amish relationship to food and meals different from
mainstream society’s?

5. Simon spent a lifetime trying to be “significant.” What
finally spoke to his heart? Do you think his change was
permanent?

6. What kind of future do you see for Bess and Billy? Do you
think they will end up together? Or do you think Bess has
outgrown Billy?

7. Do you think Bess will ever tell Simon that he is her biological
father? Do you want her to tell him? Why or why
not?

8. What did you learn about Amish life in reading this
novel?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Suzanne Woods Fisher's web site

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