The Stone Wall

Starred review from July 27, 2020
Bestseller Lewis (Child of Mine) returns with a resplendent tale of love, loss, and faith within the Amish community of Lancaster, Pa. Twenty-something Anna, after from a breakup, moves in with her mother’s cousin Sadie for a change of pace despite her parents’ disapproval and her own concerns about leaving her ailing grandmother, Eliza, who has Alzheimer’s. Unlike Anna’s mother’s family, who are of the more modern Beachy Amish, Sadie and her side of the family are Old Order. Soon, Anna is presented with two suitors—Mart, who comes from a sect similar to Anna’s, or Gabe, an Old Order widower with a troubled young daughter. As her bonds with Gabe and his daughter strengthen, Anna ponders the differences between the Amish communities, learns stories about her grandmother being caught between two Amish sects 70 years before, and discovers that many paths lead to the same God. The redemptive union of Gabe and Anna is all the more poignant set alongside Eliza’s fleeting memories of losing the man she loved because of the same insular divides. Lewis’s fans are in for a treat.