“The Beverly Lewis people were furious with me,” he said. “I had to go through two series to get out of that. I think by the Hannah series the negative comments had mostly tapered off, but they were really angry at first. They basically said, ‘This guy’s not authentic. He’s a quack. He’s a fake. He has no idea what he’s talking about.’”

Lewis, the veritable godmother of Amish fiction, is not Amish herself, but her grandmother at one time belonged to an old-order Mennonite sect, and Lewis herself grew up in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, the daughter of an Assemblies of God minister. Her father had a great deal of contact with the Amish and, as a girl, she often had dinner at their homes. As research for The Shunning, she and her husband and daughters spent two summers with an Amish family. Unlike Eicher, Lewis claims that many of her Amish friends do indeed read her books, and even sneak into back rooms with laptops to communicate with her via Facebook and email.

“Sometimes they’ll get on Facebook with me for the live chats,” she said. “It’s a hoot. I figure, what the bishops don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Because Amish communities determine their own rules, lifestyles can vary wildly from one sect to another. Perhaps that’s why Lewis fans often chafe at Eicher’s books. Lewis focuses solely on Lancaster County, while Eicher likes to profile a different settlement for each series. The habits and laws of an Amish sect in Holmes County, Ohio, might bear little resemblance to those of Kolona, Iowa, which in turn might have very little in common with one located in DeKalb County, Ind. (On a recent trip home to Indiana I drove through DeKalb and spotted a buggy sporting ground effects and minivan bucket seats. Rock music blared from a boombox in the back. The next buggy I saw was more traditional – an unadorned, sealed black box with a reflective orange triangle on the fender.)

Such seeming inconsistencies can lead to confusion on the part of the English reader. How is it that some can get away with having cellphones while others are punished for wearing hats with too narrow a brim?

Lewis’ books, while meticulously researched, do not often deal with such realities, at least when those realities would cast the Amish in a less-than-exalted light. In fact, her Amish friends asked that in her writing Lewis avoid exposing some of the very real problems Amish communities face when trying to keep the modern world at bay. For that view of things, you can always consult documentaries like “Devil’s Playground” and “Trouble in Paradise” in which Amish young people are depicted as hard-drinking, hard-drugging partyers more interested in meth than in settling down quickly with the bonneted girl or bowl-cut boy of their dreams.

“My friends have told me, ‘Look, we’re not perfect. You don’t have to write like we’re perfect, but please also don’t tell too much about how wild our young people get. Don’t write about the wild beer parties, the premarital sex, that kind of stuff,’” Lewis said.

So instead, she wrote The Shunning. Loosely based on Lewis’ maternal grandmother’s heart-wrenching ex-communication from her Mennonite community, the romance was Lewis’ first novel for adults. It tells the story of Katie Lapp, a beautiful, restless young Amish woman who, unlike her brothers and friends, can’t seem to tamp down her love of pretty clothes and English music. It isn’t until she discovers that she was not actually born Amish but rather adopted by the Lapp family from a poor little rich English girl that Katie begins to understand why she longs to trade her plain life for something fancier.

Prior to The Shunning’s publication in 1997, Lewis had written fiction only for children and young adults, her most popular being What Is God Like? and its companion, What Is Heaven Like?, both distributed by Bethany House. She’d also put out a number of books in the popular Christian series The Cul-de-sac Kids.

Steve Oates said that while the people at Bethany House believed in Lewis and had benefited from her proven ability to pump out popular fiction (she writes two books a year and has more than 14 million copies in print), he and the rest of the staff were a little anxious when she pitched them an idea for a novel targeted at adults.

“But we thought it was a good, sweet story and that there was potential for it to sell maybe 25,000 in the first year,” he said.

They were way off. The Shunning sold more than 125,000 copies in its first year and has since been made into both a stage musical and a Hallmark Movie Channel feature film with Michael Landon Jr. as its director. It also launched a new genre, and there are at least 39 women and men (Eicher now has two or three compatriots) now regularly writing Amish fiction.

There might be a larger playing field, but Lewis is still the queen of the bonnet book. Her popularity both gratifies and embarrasses her, particularly when she hears stories like Eicher’s.

“Sometimes I read a post on Facebook and it will say something like, ‘Of all the Amish fiction writers, I like you the best’ or ‘You’re the only one I’ll read.’ A lot of bookstore owners tell me the same thing. Customers come in and all they want is the newest Beverly Lewis. They say don’t care about the other 38 writers in the genre. I don’t know how to take that. I believe my readers are very loyal and, my goodness, my heart, I appreciate that, but I think they should read whatever they want to, whatever’s intriguing to them.”

Things that make you go ‘jah’

The Amish fiction market is not limited to books for adults. Young adult writers are also slowly getting into the game. Case in point, Melody Carlson’s Doubletake, which is Freaky Friday or The Parent Trap meets Pennsylvania Dutch country and tells the story of one fateful spring break when Anna Fisher, discontented Amish girl, changes places with Madison Van Buren, angst-ridden gossip girl, with heartwarming results. Both girls learn valuable life lessons, and Madison even finds God, thanks in part to the glorious canopy of stars over Anna’s aunt’s backyard. Madison also discovers that she very much enjoys looking at the Fabio-like form of neighbor boy Malachi Stoltzfus: “[She] gaped at his perfect abs and ripped muscles as he shoved the bale into place. His torso was tan and glistening in the sun, and with his shaggy blond hair, chiseled profile, perfect nose, full lips … seriously, this guy could model for the front of a romance novel.”

If bonnet books sound a little like bodice busters without the sex, that’s because they are. There’s much talk of feelings and emotions, a great deal of agonizing over love, and a healthy dose of “will they or won’t they,” only in the case of Amish fiction, the question involves marriage and joining the church instead of throbbing purple manhoods. The novels often begin with an Amish language glossary, and all include italicized German words like “jah” (yes), “ach,” (oh) and “kinder” (kids). And no matter what the book’s basic story line, you’re guaranteed to encounter some familiar names. Everyone’s either a Glick, a Zook, a Lapp, or a Stoltzfus. Gad-zooks, Batman!

Oates admits that Amish fiction, while obviously incredibly popular, is a tricky genre because it’s one in which the writers (with the exception of Eicher) are not necessarily writing what they know rather than what they’ve learned.

“If you think about it, it is a bit problematic,” he said. “You’re basically writing a Christian book about people of another faith.”

At first, even Lewis had misgivings. Even though she’d grown up alongside many Amish children and her mother’s side of the family is still very much a part of plain life, she wasn’t sure she could write about a community that was both so oddly exotic and deliberately isolated. The only way she overcomes her concerns is through research in the form of reading and regular visits to the specific community she’s writing about.

“I love the research. That’s really my favorite part. I find the different Ordnungs fascinating, and I work hard to double- and triple-check every fact. Some of my readers tell me my books are almost more like nonfiction than fiction, and I find that very flattering.”

Lewis believes it’s research and a deep and abiding fascination with, and respect for, the Amish way of life that distinguishes her novels from others that might have been written with more a cynical end in mind: that is, a fat paycheck. Oates agrees. Not necessarily a fan of the bonnet book himself – he’s often asked Lewis to throw in an explosion or two – he said that the Amish fiction authors who write from the heart are amply rewarded in fan loyalty. And, if those fans have any say in the matter, writers like Lewis might even see some returns in the hereafter.

“We hear about people going to church and praying not only for their favorite writers but for the characters in these novels,” Oates said. “As stupid as that may sound to some, bonnet book readers get really emotionally connected to the characters and their lives. That means the authors are really doing their job.”