Plain and Fancy

Brides of Lancaster County #3

by Wanda E. Brunstetter

Is it good for two people-one plain, the other fancy-to fall in love?
Laura Meade loves her modern life, yet she fascinated by the Amish culture in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where she is studying interior design. Upon their first meeting, she is immediately attracted to Eli Yoder, one of the Plain People, but Laura has no real concept about faith, God's love, and forgiveness of sins.
Eli is also enamored with Laura, but to marry outside his faith would be forbidden. What then is the hope for love?

Plain and Fancy is book 3 in the Brides of Lancaster County series.
Other books in the series include A Merry Heart: Book 1, Looking for a Miracle: Book 2, and The Hope Chest: Book 4.

Genres: Amish, Christian Fiction, Romance, Amish Fiction, Fiction, Christian, Christian Romance

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 9, 2002

About the author

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, Wanda E. Brunstetter is one of the founders of the Amish fiction genre. She has written close to 90 books translated in four languages. With over 10 million copies sold, Wanda's stories consistently earn spots on the nations most prestigious bestseller lists and have received numerous awards.

Wanda’s ancestors were part of the Anabaptist faith, and her novels are based on personal research intended to accurately portray the Amish way of life. Her books are well-read and trusted by many Amish, who credit her for giving readers a deeper understanding of the people and their customs.

When Wanda visits her Amish friends, she finds herself drawn to their peaceful lifestyle, sincerity, and close family ties. Wanda enjoys photography, ventriloquism, gardening, bird-watching, beachcombing, and spending time with her family. She and her husband, Richard, have been blessed with two grown children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

To learn more about Wanda, visit her website at www.wandabrunstetter.com.

Reviews

[Kaye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now this time the author is has just created the most annoying and selfish main character. Laura, a girl from Minnesota goes to Pennsylvania and meets Amish boy. She loves him so much she chooses to take on the plain life. Eli is sweet but so clueless. I think what really annoyed me was that Laura essentially fakes committing to their religion to get her guy. She takes religion classes and is baptized with no study, prayer or thought and the whole Amish community just accepts her. Later she is finds Jesus with a couple of scriptures given by her sister in-law. What has she been doing for those 3 hour worship meetings. I know it is a romance but come on. And who in this day and age would think you just institutionalize a handicapped child instead of caring for it yourself. A religious romance still needs good writing and characters and this one misses the mark.

[Abyssdancer (Hanging in there!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plain and Fancy is the third book in The Brides of Lancaster County series, and so far, it is my favorite … Laura is a wealthy young woman attending a design school in Lancaster … Eli is an Amish man who still hasn’t officially joined the church, and still does not know if he wants to marry … they meet at a farmers’ market, and despite their cultural differences, they eventually start a deep friendship … and when Laura decides to become Amish, they fall in love ….

Okay, and why does an agnostic sinner like myself swoon over this chaste Amish romance? I thought to myself that maybe it’s because I secretly harbor a desire to live the Plain life … yes, this is what I’m thinking as I peck away on my iPhone, enjoying the air conditioning and LED lamps in my room, and admiring the piles of sacrilegious books dominating any free space available … but there is a part of me that would love to cook and bake all day, to care for kinner, to sew and quilt, even to hang laundry outside … and the quiet … I just imagine the purity of the silence as I sit by the fireplace and sip a cup of chamomile tea … and I imagine the purity of faith in giving my life completely to God, to Christ … religion is so often mocked in the fancy world … and I used to mock away … but silence, and faith, and the power of prayer … I like to imagine what those experiences feel like …

At the end of this book, God presents Laura and Eli with an especially excruciating challenge to their young married life … a challenge that becomes a blessing when Laura fully gives her life to God … I don’t think I will ever have the courage to profess my faith so openly and so strongly …

Could I leave my fancy life for the Plain lifestyle? Probably not - there are some amusing scenes about the family outhouse, and I don’t think I can abide without indoor plumbing … but this book kindly portrays Laura’s struggle with this lifestyle change, and Eli is such a kind, patient, loving husband who does everything he can to support her … another sweet Amish romance, a romance not only between people, but a romance with the Plain way of living …

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay....(sighs).. so I opened the book right after I finished my first Amish book. Naively thinking this book would leave me at the edge of my seat like the last.....

Least to say, it didn't.

I liked the book and story, but by the fifth chapter I'd done figured the plot out. Easy to figure out for someone whose been reading books of every kind for eleven years.

Girl meets guy. Girl and guy fall in love at first sight. Good plot. Almost just like a fairy tale. Expect the girl is English and the guy ( a rather handsome one at that), is Amish. Now from there I guessed, what was going to happen.

I think it was good, but after I figured out was going to happen, I kind of lost interest.

I do recommend it tho. I'll finish it someday.....when I don't have anything else to read. 😊

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two quick things to note:

1. There's a big time jump between Looking for a Miracle and Plain and Fancy.
2. This book is very unrealistic.

Having said all of that, I honestly liked this book. If you're a romancy-shmancy person that can buy something like Pretty Woman, you should be able to buy this romance.

Laura Meade is a spoiled rich girl who meets and falls into the ever dreaded insta-love with Eli. Only, in this book, the insta-love weirdly didn't make me want to claw my eyes out.

She has absolutely no idea what it means to be Amish and she honestly doesn't even believe in God but she converts for Eli and finds herself fairly miserable. Fairly pregnant and miserable.

Still, she does her best, pretending as much as she can—until her world comes crashing down on her.

Laura had to come to a moment of conviction in which she turned her heart to God. Being Amish couldn't save her. Going through the motions of being a good church member hadn't given her peace. It took placing her trust in God for her to find her way.

This book was so unrealistic to me and Laura was so childish that I can't believe that no one had outed her for being a phony. Honestly, I'm surprised she had been allowed to join the church at all.

But, again, this book held a strange appeal to me. Isn't that funny? How I can read a book that logically I know isn't the author's greatest work and yet I like it despite the imperfections.

I think this book was the best for me out of the series so far and I'm super curious about book number four. I don't know whether to expect another time jump or if I might get another visit with Laura and Eli.

Note: Kristin reads and reviews both Christian and secular fiction on A Simply Enchanted Life. Out of respect for my readers, I am including a content review. This content review will help you decide whether this book is suitable for you.

Christian or Secular: Christian
ASEL Rating: no profanity, violence, bedroom scenes, or other content that could otherwise be considered disturbing
Content to be aware of: None
Suggested Age: 15+ (Best enjoyed by adults or older teens. This suggested age is not due to inappropriate content.)

This review originally posted on A Simply Enchanted Life

[Brooke · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst books I have read. The dialogue was positively wooden. There was no character development. There was no indication of the characters reaching a decision, any decision. Laura one day sees Eli and decides on the a spot to become amish. Just like that! But of course! And from my own research about Old Order Amish there was no way this is even a romanticised version of reality - the situation presented in this novel would never happen the way it's depicted here. I really disliked this book. I'll stick wih Serena B Miller in the future.

[Pamela Huenke · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing was terrible.

[Pamela Pavkov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plain and Fancy is the third fascinating story written by Wanda Brunstetter in her Brides of Lancaster County series. Her characters are very likeable and realistic. This story brings to light the struggles that occur when an English woman decides to convert to Amish. The journey is anything but easy. This story is filled with love but also heartbreaking events. The conclusion to this story is will definitely leave you smiling if not shedding a few tears. Wanda has done an amazing job telling a story filled with love, determination, heartbreak, and definitely forgiveness.

I was not given a complimentary copy of this book to read and review. I was not approached to post a favorable response. I have rated this story with five stars for meeting my expectations of a wonderful story that I can highly recommend to others. This is a wonderful series.

Congratulations to Wanda Brunstetter for continuing her series with this fantastic story. I look forward to more stories written by this author.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third book in the 'Brides of Lancaster County' by Wanda E. Brunstetter. Plain and Fancy was well written. Laura is from Minnesota and goes to Designing School in Pennsylvania. She meets Eli Holder, who is Amish. Eli has not joined church, yet, bc he hasn't meet the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. That doesn't matter to his mother. She thinks Pauline is the perfect wife for Eli After Eli and Laura meet, they try to stay away from each other, but it doesn't work. Soon Laura decides to become Amish, so her and Eli can marry.

There was great character development with Laura and Eli. She faced a lot of changes to her way of life. One thing I didn't like was that she complained all the time. I was thinking to myself, you were the one who chose to become Amish. Quit taking it out on others and blaming them for your decision.

Can she learn to live with her decision? What secret is she hiding from Eli? If you like Christian Fiction and have never read Brunstetter, you really need to give her a try. I think you will enjoy her books. I know I do.

😊 Happy Reading 😊

#offtheshelf2024
#alphabetchallenge2024 (P)
#wandaebrunstetter
#plainandfancy

[Chana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was passed along to me by a neighbor with a warning that it was bad. It was somehow worse than I expected. Not because it was an Amish romance; but because of the writing.

[Teresa Giglio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, I confess that I'm a frugal book hoarder.

So I have access to a certain lending library these days. And for the most part it's all Danielle Steele and James Patterson, neither of which intrigue me too much (no offense, just not my thing).

But when I spied with my little eye Plain and Fancy by Wanda Brunstetter, I couldn't resist.

SPOILERS BELOW

First let me say that as an author, Wanda Brunstetter is lapping me. She's dancing circles on my shallow grave, okay? I have one book out, and almost nobody read it. Wanda has dozens of books out and tons of fans. She has trailers for her books, with live actors in them. They're all really professionally done. Wanda is on the ball as an author. So kudos to her, and please keep that in mind as I give my honest and spoilery review below.

This was my first time reading a book about Amish people, so I didn't know what to expect. But I saw that there are many books in this genre. And if you're interested in experimenting with Amish books, I would recommend Happily Ever Amish, by Shelley Shepard Gray, instead. I'm giving Plain and Fancy 2 stars. I found it disappointing.

The best thing about this book is that I learned a little about the Amish. I did some research on their culture. It made me want to make a shoo-fly pie. And I'm left wondering if there's a low-German word, like the trucker slang "lot lizard," for English women who try to lure good Amish boys into eternal Rumspringa. Something that would translate to "Buggy jumpers?" "Perfumed rats?"

Plain and Fancy is about a girl named Laura, the daughter of an attorney from Minneapolis, who goes to interior design college in Lancaster Pennsylvania. Why? Because she apparently didn't get accepted at a real design college. That's the only explanation I can think of.

In the book it says it's because she's fascinated by the Amish and their home decoration aesthetic. So in other words, she's unfamiliar with them. Because their decoration aesthetic is that it's a sin to decorate things.

No, really, Laura is too dumb to survive outside the womb. And also she's quite a rotten human being, shallow, just plain spoiled, dishonest, lazy, really no redeeming qualities at all.

The Amish guy who falls for her, Eli, must be thinking with his little head, the same way non-Amish guys so often do. That's ultimately why I'm panning this book. Because instead of giving us real people, Brunstetter has made everyone mostly rather two-dimensional. The Amish people are a bit more human, and the men. But the women, and especially the "English" women, are cartoon baddies. Laura's mother is even worse than Laura, who is fully loathsome.

It seems to me that if Brunstetter had more confidence in her own beliefs, she could make the villains (the secular women) a bit more human and likeable. Having the secular lifestyle also be okay as a choice, not solely the domain of garbage people like Laura and her mother, would have taken this book to the next level.

Because the Amish lifestyle has nothing to apologize for and plenty to praise. I knew there was no chance Eli would move to Minnesota with her and go work at Best Buy. I was sure this would end with Laura in a bonnet. There's a reason she didn't go to design school in New York, where design schools are located.

Laura is not a good kid. She would've been perfectly fine with pulling Eli into her world. She had no intention of giving up wifi or air conditioning. But of course then the book would've been on a different shelf ;)

But no, in this book English disgusting, Amish perfect. Laura's mother has not one redeeming quality, nor does Laura. Laura's father is somewhat sympathetic because he is seen as a victim of his selfish, materialistic wife. Laura's mother spends all her time at "charity" functions that may or may not benefit anyone but herself and her need to socialize, and greatly inconvenience Laura's father.

It's also insta-love. I'm not a romance reader. But I really don't get any reason why Laura and Eli want to be together other than physical attraction which happened immediately, and so this book could have a woman leave the fancy life behind and find true happiness in fundamentalist patriarchy.

And don't get me wrong; I'm fine with the Amish community. We share many values in common. I have a rather modest lifestyle and do many things by hand. The most-likeable person in this book is the Amish mother-in-law, who is cast as something of a shrew for not accepting Laura -- who should absolutely not be accepted.

Because Laura is faking everything in order to get what she wants. She is a phony. She has no respect for the Amish or anyone else. She only wants what she wants.

Laura meets her future husband, Eli Yoder, at the Amish market where he's selling the bird houses he makes. He stops her from taking a picture of some Amish children who are passing by, explaining that in their culture, they don't like to be photographed.

That's a depressing meet-cute for so many reasons. First of all it shows how little Laura knows about the Amish, not even very basic things like not wanting to be photographed. Also there's nothing really cute about it. Also she should already know not to take pictures of random children she doesn't know even if they aren't Amish.

But as I said, she's truly and deeply awful. Eventually of course they do get married, because this is a romance book. And at first I intended to not rate this book, only review it, because I'm not the intended reader. I don't really read romance. And I'm not a conservative Christian, which is I believe the intended reader. I suspect this book is meant for Evangelical women with children who wish they never had to step foot in another Costco -- and I totally relate to them on that.

But even grading on the curve, I was so disappointed. Because -- and here's the spoiler -- the ending could have been really great, and it wasn't.

There was an opportunity for Eli's sister (one of the two interesting characters in the book) to help Laura to a true Christian conversion. But the moment wasn't given time to breathe inside the narrative. Laura first of all was made such a cartoon "English" woman, so spoiled and useless, that there really wasn't space for her to have a proper character arc and blossom into a decent Amish woman. Brunstetter didn't allow for that in the character development.

Brunstetter all but wrote Laura's mother as Hilary Clinton. The underlying message that secular women have zero redeeming qualities is abundantly clear throughout this book. Eli's mother was the other character that I liked, who seemed like a real person and had some common sense. And she was cast in a negative light.

Laura has a child with Down's syndrome and bolts from her marriage to Eli and back to her wealthy parents in Minnesota, after previously telling them to screw off, she's joining the Amish. Then Eli's sister goes to bring her back and convince her that it's okay, Eli wants her back, come take care of the baby.

Eli's sister makes the point that it says in the Bible it's okay if a woman doesn't have faith, as long as her husband does and she follows him. And Laura is surprised to hear that the Amish will accept her even knowing full well she's a phony, which of course they always did because DUH. Eli was the only one that ever liked her. But she's also married to their son and has produced a child with him.

So for me, not allowing the moment of Christian conversion to really fall into place, after it was so beautifully set up by the birth of their disabled child -- which is low-key blamed on Laura's constant under-eating in an attempt to stay thin because of her vanity -- ruined the whole book for me. She could really have pondered that feeling of acceptance by the sister that she had stayed with before they got married, or what it would mean to be inside that marriage and community. But Laura's just shallow and dumb. So that isn't how she processes it.

Laura, daughter of an attorney, with that bossy mother, isn't bright enough to grasp that what she's being told is that as a woman, nobody cares what you think anyway. You just have to show up and do as you're told. She takes it as them being fine with whatever she wants to do, as long as she goes back and takes care of the baby. Her big hot Yoder still wants her, knows she's a phony and is okay with it, isn't mad that she ran.

So she's happy to be a fake Christian and get her man, as long as she gets to wear the neato costume. For me, that's a trainwreck of an ending, disguised as happily ever after.

Eli's mother is right that Laura doesn't have what it takes to raise a special-needs child in the Amish community. Laura doesn't have what it takes to live among "the quiet people of the land." She won't last with being routinely humiliated at the dinner table by Eli's father when the sex isn't good anymore, when the shine wears off the relationship. She'll run again later.

Ultimately I can't recommend this book because the characters are so two-dimensional. I'm only on the second chapter of Happily Ever Amish and it's worlds better. The Amish people are actually humans with normal, relatable thought processes albeit from a different culture. Plain and Fancy reads like a really strange social submission fetish.

The best characters in Plain and Fancy are Eli's mother and sister. But Laura and her mother are cringeable. At one point when Laura discovers she's pregnant, a college friend mentions that she could get an abortion because she's in such distress. Laura feels like not doing so is "teaching her a lesson," as though that girl GAF. She doesn't. And you haven't taught her anything except that you don't appreciate friends. She doesn't get a commission on abortions.

Really, think about it. Any girl who hears from her college roommate that she's run off to join the Amish, is pregnant and in distress, and doesn't try to talk to her about other options that she has, is a bit of a butthole.

Because for some portion of this book Laura's family didn't even know how to find her if they wanted to. That's messed up. Because you know what? The key word in "Amish people" is "people." They're humans with human problems. You can't just be jumping into a buggy with the next hot Yoder that rolls up any more than you would a strange man's car.

No, seriously. Read Women Talking if you don't think men in such communities are capable of any kind of sexual violence. They totally are. Google "Amish crime" and let your eyeballs pop out. Many Amish men expect to do whatever they want to women, any old time. They might be the best guys ever. Or they might not. But the choice is entirely their own.

And frankly, Eli was a jerk in the book. I don't get what she liked about him other than the same thing he liked about her. They wanted to do the nasty. And he's Amish. So they had to get married first, which was a terrible idea. Read Happily Ever Amish instead.

[Phyllis Cawley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve never been more annoyed and then angry at a character.

[LINDA BOURG · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one. A story about an english woman and an Amish man who fall in love, but can their lifestyle difference be overcome. One of them will have to give in. A story about compromise for the glory of love. They had many obstacles to overcome an ex girlfriend and a mother in law who thought her son should of married and Amish woman. But in the end love wins and the fight to stay together is worth it all.

[Talia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Laura is a modern girl from Minnesota who moves to Amish country to go to interior design school. While perusing the local farmer’s market, she meets Eli, an Amish carpenter. When Laura and Eli fall in love despite their cultural (and religious) differences, Eli begins to worry. Can these two opposites have a future together when both of their backgrounds and lifestyles are so different?

This was my first “inspirational fiction” book, and I will say, it was actually more of a romance and pretty light on the religion (until the tail end, at least). The book seemed to focus more on the Amish way of life, which was actually pretty interesting. My problem with the book is that the characters are completely unbelievable. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural, especially with Laura’s character. Laura does not sound like a 22 year old woman, and the idea of going to interior design school in Amish country is absurd to me (Paris, Milan, Lancaster County??) Overall, I enjoyed the cultural parts about Amish life, but the story itself was pretty uninteresting.

[Dragondreamsjen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I give up on this author and her Amish novels. Not only was this third book totally unrealistic, it was almost insulting to the rich Amish culture as it detailed a "Fancy" woman's adventure giving the modern world up for love to become "Plain". The heroine is so selfish, shallow and vapid that I wanted to hurl the book across the room more than once. The sappy, pat ending made a badly handled story even more unpalatable. I won't be hunting for an more of these, even free at the library!

[Pam A · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK and simplistic read, you could guess he plot and ending within the first couple of chapters. I though the whole story was unrealistic - in todays world anyway, as I have visited Amish country and there were things reported that were far from true. Also, there wasn't even one character in the book that I liked - they all had more personality flaws than positives. Strange book. I'll stick to those written by B Lewis.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story I couldn’t put it down, started it about 11PM and read on thru. This is such a good series about the Amish and their trials and Plain way of living, this one was a bit of a different read for me as it was the first book I’ve read where an English woman turned Amish after falling for an Amish boy. Laura met Eli at the Farmer’s Market when she went looking for ideas for her design school classes, after meeting Eli who was selling wood things he had made she couldn’t get him out of her mind. After realizing Eli wouldn’t leave his faith, and her fancy life was empty she made the decision to join his church and become Amish so they could be together. Of course there were many obstacles to overcome and it was hard, at times I think Eli and his family were a little hard on her and not very understanding of all she had given up and went thru, but I lost sympathy for her when she abandoned her baby and ran away because he had Down Syndrome. I guess some people really are just raised different but people aren’t put away in homes in my family either. Maybe with a little more understanding and guidance though Laura may have never felt the way she did. I was very teary eyed while reading their happy ending and seeing that Laura’s father also got a happy ending. Great read, highly recommend if you like Amish romance.

[Danielle Turko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eli doesn't feel the need to settle down and get baptized into the church just yet. He knows he doesn't plan on leaving the Amish church but once he gets baptized everyone will expect him to settle down and get married which he is not looking to do anytime soon, despite all the hints from childhood friend Pauline that she's more than willing to be his wife. He wants to love his wife, and so far everyone he's met is only a friend. Then he meets Laura. Laura just moved here from out of state and is everything he wanted. She's funny and smart and very pretty but there's only one problem: she's not Amish and isn't wanting to give up all the modern conveniences she grew up with. He knows he should just forget about her, since the Amish church won't let him marry a non-member, but something about her keeps pulling him back. Is there a way to make this relationship between a plain man and fancy woman work?
Once again a nice read by Wanda E Brunstetter. No, the books aren't action packed and so far this whole series has been rather predictable as they follow similar plots but as an avid watcher of Hallmark channel movies I'm ok with that fact.

[Mico · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest, I really didn't enjoy it much. Laura's character is just so bad and vain. She faked accepting the Amish faith, she is upset about being pregnant because she didn't want to lose her figure, she blames her in-laws for being mean to her when it was she who was being rude to them and it really irks me the time when Mary Ellen asked her if she wanted to bake bread with her and she just said that she just want to sit and watch the men build their house and I couldn't express on how selfish she is, she is sensitive and worst of all she rejected her own son just because he has down syndrome and left Eli etc. Look, I know that her character developed but all throughout the book, I disliked her. But this get 2 stars because I do found it rather a bit interesting, its hard to admit bit I do enjoy it a bit. But the writing is kinda lazy because one does not simply describe a character as handsome or beautiful you should at least give a short but comprehensive description of what the charcter looks like, like how she described Martha Rose. And I felt like there is a bit of lacking depth and I really don't feel anything when the character is experiencing pain.

[Lena · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was awful!! Laura was so stupid and selfish and I can't believe she actually became Amish! in reality there is no way she would with her wordly attitude. And it didn't really seem like Laura and Eli were in love. I didn't see the chemistry and the characters were so flat that the reader never got to know them let alone why they fell in love. And Eli was a bit ridiculous considering Laura gave up everything to be with him. And also, how stupid was it that Laura ran away???! It was like she felt no love for her own child at all. And then at the end she was like suddenly happy and loved her children? I just didn't see it happening...not with her attitude. And then Mary Ellen was a completely different person than in book two! Yes, she is older in this book but she wasn't the same kind and fun loving person she was. She seemed bitter and cruel, totally unlike the same person who loves her friend with a disability, because she was horrible to Laura and made her feel bad all the time.

[Rosemarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 3 in this series continues with yet one more generation removed from book 2. Eli Yoder, the son of Mary Ellen (whose marriage took place in book 2), is 23 and has not yet joined the church. A young woman in the community believes she and Eli should marry, but his extended rumspringa is preventing that. Eli doesn't want to leave the Amish community, but he sees no use in being baptized until he's ready to settle down. While working at the farmer's market, selling his birdhouses, he meets Laura, an English woman - and the attraction is immediate on both sides. Two worlds collide in the midst of developing love, and major life decisions have to be made in the name of faith and love.

A wonderful story of God's love being even greater than ours.

[Keren Herrera-Lyles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I'm not spoiled, I think that I would have trouble being Amish. Laura although was spoiled and basically got her way in everything she wanted. So, when she met Eli, she found herself attracted to him and she set her target in getting him. She did everything she could to join the church. But her set ways of what she wanted and what she thought was the correct and only way started to be a sad atmosphere for them as a married couple.

Eli, I thought he could be more patient with her being that she was new to their faith. But I did like his sister Martha Rose. I thought her character was genuinely. The story talked about selfishness. It was different than other stories but it touched points that are very relatable.

[Willadale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I knew the idea behind the story before starting to read Plain and Fancy, I still got frustrated with it at times. It must be very difficult for a person who is accustomed to one way of life to change to a totally different one - the story of Laura Meade and Eli Yoder certainly makes that quite clear.

I wish some of the characters had been more developed, especially the parents of both Laura and Eli as well as Eli's siblings. I think there was a lot of potential there.

While I enjoyed the book, I do not think it was one of Wanda Brunstetter's better books. Still, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about the Amish.

[Aimee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was surprised by how much I disliked this book. Laura, the female lead, is just not likeable- selfish and somewhat annoying- and her husband, Eli, who is Amish, does not seem to have any real chemistry with Anna, or any redeeming qualities. There wasn't much to recommend this book.

I get the appeal of the recent upsurge of romance featuring Amish characters- it allows non-Amish Christians to read romance novels that fit their basic morality, and simple living has wide appeal- but this didn't hit the mark.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main character in this book, Laura, is quite spoiled and a bit irritating to read about. Even when she gets everything she said she wanted, she doesn’t seem content. She gives birth to a baby with Down Syndrome and there is VERY ableist and negative language regarding her baby, which made me angry. The ending was nice but I still think the main character could have been less spoiled and I definitely could have done without the ableist language that suggested that Laura’s baby was “less than” simply because he has a disability.

[Bethany Joy Warner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ugh. I wanted to like this book but it was my least favorite. It was predictable but the main problem was that it was so unrealistic and i never felt a connection to the characters. I was mostly annoyed. On page 43 to say her heart was taken by him when they had only met! It was not love at that point. I was able to finish it with parts that did interest me but I struggled the whole time to care or feel anything positive about most characters. I’m not even going into the whole Pauline issue. Ugh. One time read only for me.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though the last few minutes are uplifting, the majority of the book was depressing. It took the entire book for Laura Meade, the main character, to become a "good God-believing" person. She lied to get the man she loved to marry her and then complained continually until nearly the end of the book about the plain life style. She finally accepted the Lord and became the loving wife and mother she should be. Now onto book 4 in the series.

[Clarissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this book until it got to the section in regard to their child with Down syndrome. I feel like Laura play/take of faith and creating the narrative of her leaving could have been done in a different manner as there is such a stigma on people with special needs needing to live in a different environment and this ties right into that idea what I didn’t like.

Other then that I truly loved this book & the mix of the 2 worlds

[Carlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good story, hard to put down. About Laura Meade who went to disginer school in Lancaster, Pa., where she met a cute Amish man, and fell in love with him., he also loves her, but they can't be together. So she becomes amish. And they join the church. Also he had been seeing anotther young lady, Pauline who also loves him, and thought they would be married; alhough he dosent feel that way about her.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens when there is sparks...but with someone that isn’t right for you. How can obstacles be overcome? Is there wisdom to even try? I couldn’t put this book down read it in two days. This book by Wanda reminds us there is always hope Eve. When there doesn’t look to be. With faith troubles can be overcome but not always like you expect,

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m really glad Laura changed by the end of this book. There where times where I just didn’t like her personality. This takes place years after the second book and continues on with the next generation. It’s a good continuation of this series and I enjoyed it.

I recommend reading this if you’re wanting to continue on from the first two books.