The Search Archives -

The Search is a quiet little charmer of a book. A romantic story set in Amish country, The Search is part three in the Lancaster County Secrets series of women’s Christian romance novels. This story centres around two young women, one named Bess and the other Lainey O’Toole. At first it is unclear what the two women might have in common and how their stories are intertwined. Bess is the grandaughter of Bertha Riehl, and she is sent for the summer to Pennsylvania to help care for her grandmother after some surgery has left Bertha in need. Well, the surgery turns out to have been a bit of a stretch and the grandmother, a bit of a scheming puppet-master. Bertha is a comical character who Bess learns to love over the course of the summer. Bess and Bertha and the farmhand Billy will all work together throughout the summer at Rose Hill farm, living off the land and learning how to grow roses. The roses, of course, are a metaphor for the characters within the book, some blooming like Bess, others slowly withering like Simon and Bertha and, yet another group still twinning together like the hybrids Billy has learned to graft into new variations on the traditional flower. Throughout the summer Bertha mischieviously tells Bess she must teach her how to drive a car and repeatedly “borrows” a police car to give her lessons. When Bertha manages to get herself and Bess thrown into jail, her son Jonah must return home. Thus Bertha successfully orchestrates the return of her son Jonah, Bess’s father. Lainey O’Toole has remained in Stoney Ridge following some car troubles. She is an aspiring chef who once lived in Stoney Ridge and didn’t intend to return, but winds up spending far more time there than intended. While she is there revisiting her old home, she is confronted by her past and the choices made so long ago, on a night when Jonah and his young family were involved in a horse and buggy accident just outside Lainey’s old childhood home. When Bertha Riehl’s brother, the drunk Simon, who has been shunned by the Amish community for many years, is near death, Bertha seeks a family member to donate bone marrow. Finding a match for the old miserable Simon starts a whole subplot that will call DNA and lineage into question. When Bess is eventually found to be a perfect match, everybody but Jonah, it seems, understands what that must mean. This is a story well told. Suzanne Woods Fisher has successfully created several strong female characters that really are the heart of this book. The author shows restraint and purpose in capturing the reality of Amish life. Suzanne Woods Fisher is the author of The Choice and The Waiting. I have not read either one of the earlier stories, so I know that this novel can stand on its own, or in the context of the series. Based on how much I enjoyed this story, I would happily choose either of those other books. Getting to know the characters in The Search was enjoyable. The characters are engaging and well rounded and driven by psychological struggles and romantic desires. I found this book to be a nice surprise and truly enjoyed the strong female characters.
The Search by Suzanne Woods Fisher, Jan. 2001, Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, US $14.99, 297 pages with discussion guide.

Thriftymommastips rating is $$$$ out of $$$$$.
I received a copy of this book in order to review it. The opinions in this blog are my own.

Honestly this blog is one of the best gigs around. I get to read some truly captivating reads and also some books that make me wonder how they got published. And, on occasion, I get to step outside my literary comfort zone and explore an author I’ve not yet spent time with. And so it was with Nora Roberts. Oh, I know she sits on the shelf at every library, corner store and grocery store checkout. But until this month she was an author I had little desire to read. Then The Search landed on my desk and well the queen of romantic suspense captured my imagination. So we spent a couple of enjoyable weeks together. Until now I believed this author to be romantic pulp fiction and yet, this one intrigued me enough to delve into the story. Luckily I found more there. The Search is the story of Fiona Bristow, who runs a dog training school on the island of Orcas, in the Pacific Northwest. She is also a volunteer with a canine search and rescue unit, which is where the plot begins. The very kickoff of this novel has a toddler that has gone missing from inside the cottage where his parents are holidaying and enjoying temporary-lapse-of-judgement-holiday-sex. Well, let’s just say the topic matter resonated and, when a plot jumpstarts in that manner I am hooked for the ride. I will not spoil this incredibly suspenseful story for my readers but it centred around Fiona and a carpenter named Simon, who seeks her help with his unruly pup named Jaws. Simon is brusque and handy and incapable of disciplining his puppy. Naturally, neither one is looking for a relationship when love comes knocking. The romantic part of the plot is, at times predictable, and there were definite scenes that felt like lady porn, but the suspense kept me on the edge of my seat. The amount of detail in the search and rescue scenes was intriguing and it leant authenticity to the story. Roberts purposefully juxtaposes canine training sessions with the romance plot so that readers will draw parallels between canine and human behaviour. It is not ham-handed but a rather clever insight. Fiona Bristow, a sort of dog whisperer, leads a quiet life on her island until she gets word that a serial killer has begun copying crimes that are tied to a psychopath she helped put away, the Red Scarf Killer. She is a strong and competent heroine, which truly is rather refreshing. She is believable throughout as a person who could fight back if abducted off the street. Dubbed RSK II, the new copycat killer, is hunting Fiona, because she was the only survivor of the intial Red Scarf Killer. There were moments in the middle of this 488 page novel that I thought the story slowed to a crawl and might have benefitted from more aggressive editing, but overall the story is well told and a definite page-turner. It’s enough to make me pick another one of the author’s many books to see if she is as consistent with character and suspense. Nora Roberts is a New York Times best-selling author of 191 novels. Over 400 million copies of her novels are in print and a total 169 of her 191 novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Stunning, really!

The Search, By Nora Roberts is published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $31.00 Hardcover. July 6, 2010.
ISBN 13 978-0-399-15657-1
$$$$ out of $$$$$. At times it seemed like The Search might never end, but the story is suspenseful and a good summer read.
Thriftymomma was not paid to review this novel. Instead I was given a copy so that I could review it. The opinions are my own.

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