cover image The Longest Road: The Whinburg Township Amish

The Longest Road: The Whinburg Township Amish

Adina Senft. Moonshell Books, $4.99 e-book (360p) ISBN 978-1-939087-49-2

Senft’s (Balm of Gilead) novel begins on a late November day 13 years ago, with two little Amish girls and their older brother Samuel going walnut picking. When Samuel runs into friends and becomes distracted, the young girls disappear, never to be seen again. Samuel cannot recover from his guilt and abandons his home and the Amish community, leaving their mother, Rebecca Riehl, with three empty place settings at her dinner table “until God in his wisdom and mercy did bring them back.” Meanwhile Megan and Ashley Pearson grow up thinking they have no connection to the missing girls, but Megan is plagued by nightmares that indicate a mystery in her past. While Ashley is eager to enter college, Megan spends her days gaming and working at a coffee bar. The girls’ identity is divulged early in the book, with their mother, Janet, revealing where they were found in the woods; faced with this newfound truth, Megan is eager to hit the road to discover their true family while Ashley reluctantly comes along. In this first book of a new series, Senft, a prolific author of 36 books, has crafted an appealing tale of searching for one’s true identity. There is also an interesting study of the two mothers and how they have coped—one with her loss, the other with her guilt, and the role of faith in that process. (BookLife)