Susannah Beiler is the Bishop’s daughter in a community of Amish people in Indiana. Not only does she follow the rules of the reasonably relaxed community, she doesn’t encourage any young men to court her. Micah Fisher arrives in Indiana from Maine, not quite looking forward to a summer helping his grandparents without his mobile phone and blue jeans.

AN UNLIKELY AMISH MATCH is fifth in a series called Indiana Amish Brides and this book gives us a good insight into the contrasts between these two young people. At 25, Micah should be settling down and taking vows to his faith, looking to find a wife and support her. He’d rather post selfies on Snapchat. Susannah thinks Micah is disrespectful of his senior relatives and much as he tries, he’s going to be a bad influence on her friends and her two little sisters. Susannah doesn’t expect to wed, because she’s survived cancer already and won’t be able to have children. A family is hugely important to the farming folk, so the new young man Micah next door who helps shoe horses would not even be interested in her. Or so she thinks.

Various tensions arise, from criminal issues to dangerous weather, which demonstrates that life on the farm is not so comfortable and basic as some people might imagine. Life is all the tougher when lived without smartphones, something I would find unappealing now, but Micah and Susannah learn to enjoy spending time in each other’s company without distracting screens. The generation gap is also made clear; while my generation is told to ‘step out of the comfort zone’ to progress, older folks live the way they think they are expected to live, according to routines that pervaded earlier times. With little exposure to novelty during their lives, any change seems large and threatening.

In this enjoyable story, unlike some other Amish series romances, the cast list is short. We don’t follow a large number of townsfolk from earlier books, though members of the community make an appearance at events like a quilting day or barn raising. I found the focus on two families interesting, and since Susannah doesn’t have sisters near her own age, her mother is a huge help with talking through problems. Author Vannetta Chapman does, however, let us see that mature women tend to lose their own identity and housework goes unappreciated. This is important to remember all year, not just at Mother’s Day. AN UNLIKELY AMISH MATCH is a charming, thoughtful reminder that sometimes, real love breaks the rules.

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