Posted August 09, 2010 to Digital, Media Appearances, Print
Deirdre Donahue is one of my favorite USA Today reporters. Whenever she covers any subject tangentially related to romance, I know she’s going to do a fair job, and not just slam the genre out of hand. She’s a romance fan herself, and her articles about the genre have always made me happy – especially when she includes me in them!
Today, she’s published an article about the surge in popularity of Amish-set romance: Romance novels set in Amish country are growing apace:
“It’s a huge, huge, huge trend,” says romance blogger Sarah Wendell, co-author of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels….
And that low-tech lifestyle creates a small-town atmosphere, which has deep appeal for readers who may find Wi-Fi-only connections emotionally isolating. “Even within your own neighborhood, you feel alone,” says Jane Little of the influential romance blog Dear Author. In an Amish inspirational, “we’re all one big family,” she says.
“Here you have this agrarian society that is closed to outsiders right in the middle of the Northeast,” says Wendell. “It’s both historical and contemporary.”
I reviewed an Amish-set book a few months ago, Cindy Woodsmall’s The Hope of Refuge, and gave it a C. The themes were fascinating but the religious revelations came far, far too easy.
I don’t think the Amish fascination will decline any time soon, though it eventually will. As complex and connected yet distant as our lives are now, revisiting that type of simplicity in fiction is a curious and compulsive indulgence for many readers.
Tags: pop culture, usa today
