Book Review - The Longing and At First Sight

The Longing by Beverly Lewis. Book #3 in the Courtship of Nellie Fisher series.

I have been waiting what seems like forever to read this book so I could finish this series. I finally got it in and devoured it! It took me a few chapters to sort it out because it had been so long since I read book two that I was having a hard time remembering the events (plus, before, I was reading another Amish series at the same time as this one and I was getting them confused.) So, my advice with this series is that if you're going to read it, make sure you read all the books in order, close together. The books do some explaining, but you really need to read them sequentially and one right after the other.

Definitely some twists and turns in this book that I didn't see coming. This series and this book's events are centered around "the intriguing events of 1966, when the Lancaster County New Order Amish church was birthed." It's quite an interesting piece of fictional Amish history. As with all her books, Beverly Lewis does a remarkable job with her research and in making all these characters come to life in your mind. I know the works are fictional, but I believe the research she puts into making these characters "real" is phenomenal.

Overall: A Great read! Get the series!

At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks

According to the inside sleeve of this book: "At First Sight is about endings that bring new beginnings...tragedies that lead to unexpected joy...and, most of all, the magic of everlasting love."

What it doesn't tell you is that it is going to take you for a roller coaster ride - both mentally and emotionally. It's a book for all genres of book lovers. It has mystery, it has suspense, it has love, it has intrigue. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry.

It also has some southern appeal, since the majority of the book takes place in Boone Creek, North Carolina.

One of my favorite passages in the book - although it really has nothing to do with the overall focus of the book, but being a Southerner I relate - is this:

"In New York, there was always a new restaurant to try and food that suited whatever mood he might be in, from Vietnamese to Italian to Greek to Ethiopian; in Boone Creek, dinner out was either cardboard pizza or home cooking at Ned's Diner, a place where everything was fried and so much oil floated in the air that you had to wipe your forehead with a napkin before leaving. He'd actually overheard folks at the counter talking about the best way to filter bacon grease for maximum flavor and how much fatback - whatever that was - to add to collard greens before topping the whole mess with butter. Leave it to southerners to figure out a way to make eating vegetables unhealthy."

That made me laugh outloud. And if you're southern - you resemble that remark!

Overall: Another really great book that I would highly recommend.