A SIMPLE SPRING – Rosalind Lauer
Seasons of Lancaster, Book 2
Ballantine
ISBN:  978-0-345-52673-1
April 2012
Inspirational Amish Romance

Lancaster County , Pennsylvania - Present Day

Rumspringa is the “running around time” for all Amish teenagers.  It gives them the freedoms to experience things in the Englishe world, cell phones, I-Pods and riding around in cars, even driving them.  At the end of this freedom is their commitment to the Amish church and the Amish way of life.  Sadie King enjoys lots of freedoms now during her free time; she has a cell phone and works in a local hotel.  Her Englishe boyfriend, Frank, has a band, and Sadie is the lead singer.  But she has secrets as well.  When she's not working, she goes to the city with Frank and the band and sings in bars, something any Amish girl would be forbidden to do if the elders knew what she was about.

Sadie loves to sing.  God blessed her with a powerful and beautiful voice, but in the Amish church women are not allowed to be leaders of song, and the Amish songs are slow and mournful, not uplifting like the Englishe music Sadie listens to on her I-Pod.  Her brother Adam is head of their family now, and soon he'll be expecting her to take her vows before the church and opt for baptism.  But to join the church means that Sadie will have to give up her singing to become a wife and a mother and assume the traditional drudge role Amish women endure.  Sadie just cannot give up her music.

Mike Trueherz is the son of a local doctor.  He's been a paramedic and he likes helping people; he's quick to come to the aid of anyone in need of medical attention, as long as that attention doesn't mean he has to stitch together skin or deal with a lot of blood.  Mike has a wonderful bedside manner; it's just the surgical doctoring he's opposed to.  His father believes that Mike will take over his practice one day, and Mike doesn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

A SIMPLE SPRING is a story of two people who fight the will of their families by seeking their own path to happiness.  They each have a strong faith in God, but Mike is Englishe and Sadie, Amish.  And the two very different ways of life can never be combined, or so the Amish believe.  But Sadie can't commit to the faith in that way.  She loves being Amish, but she can't give up her music, and maybe it's pride that makes her feel the happiness when she sings, but surely God wouldn't have given her a voice if she wasn't meant to use it? 

A SIMPLE SPRING is the second novel in the Season of Lancaster series and follows A SIMPLE WINTER (November 2011).  Novel three will be A SIMPLE AUTUMN.  The characters are spot on and the stories are complex and real.  Each book stands alone, but it is best if you read them in order.

Mike and Sadie have many things to work out and a lot of learning to do in A SIMPLE SPRING.  It's a wonderful story!

Diana Risso