Jerry Eicher has written a guest post about his series The Fields of Home for all us to enjoy.
He has provided me with signed copies of Missing Your Smile and Following Your Heart for one lucky winner! How nice is that? I will also be reviewing both of these books in the coming weeks.
Contest rules are simple.
- Leave a comment for Jerry on this post.
- Like and share on Facebook.
- Leave another comment on this post if you shared. That’s 3 chances to win!
Contest starts today and will run until Friday, May 11, 2012. To be fair I will be using random.org to pick the winner.
Don’t forget to like Jerry Eicher’s Facebook Author page, so if you’re a winner you can give him a big thank you! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jerry-Eicher/120343977057
The Fields of Home
This series originally began with what is now called “My Dearest Naomi”, with the intentions of using love letters between Susan and Thomas as the background for their breakup in “Missing Your Smile”.
The plan fell apart somewhere during the writing of book three. Which is now called “Following Your Heart’, when it became obvious that I too much material to satisfactorily end the story with “Following Your Heart”.
So we pulled the letters book into a standalone release, due out in July of this year. I wasn’t sure how all that was going to work, but the editors and layout people did an absolutely fantastic job, turning the book into a decent story in its own right. With a different layout, but hopefully one which readers can enjoy.
“The Fields of Home” centers on a lovely Amish community in Southern Indiana. Most people who know of Amish in the area, think of Daviess County, but this lies east of Daviess an hour and a half or so. My wife Tina and I discovered the community totally by accident, while searching for people we knew who lived in the area.
We immediately fell in love with the place, which has more woods and hills, than flat and open Daviess County. There were little hand drawn signs all over the place advertising garden produce, etc. To our delight, we were able to purchase rhubarb, the lady of the house going out to cut it fresh from the garden.
I snuck pictures while no one was looking. Lovely pictures of very friendly Amish people. This surprised me as they were clearly from a branch of severe Old Order’s by their dress. Usually the stricter the sect, the more opposition they express to the outside. But these Amish were not hostile in the least, waving and expressing other gestures of good will as we drove through the community.
I doubt if any of them will read the series, but I hope I did them credit. Their joy and smiling faces stayed in our memories for a long time.
About the Author
Jerry Eicher’s bestselling Amish fiction includes The Adams County Trilogy, the Hannah’s Heart books, the Little Valley Series, and The Fields of Home. After a traditional Amish childhood, Jerry taught for two terms in Amish and Mennonite schools in Ohio and Illinois. Since then he’s been involved in church renewal, preaching, and teaching Bible studies. Jerry lives with his wife, Tina, and their four children in Virginia.
Author Info:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jerry-Eicher/120343977057
Website: http://www.eicherjerry.com/