If you’re a fan of Amish novels then you are well aware that one of our most popular authors just released a new book this week! Cindy Woodsmall’s The Winnowing Season is now available at LifeWay Christian Stores. This is her second book in the Amish Vines and Orchards Series. Here’s a glimpse at the story:
On the eve of their departure to begin a new Old Order Amish community outside of Unity, Maine, Rhoda Byler is shocked to discover that choices made by her business partner and friend, Samuel King, have placed her and her unusual gifts directly into the path of her district’s bishop and preachers. She is furious with Samuel and is fearful that the Kings will be influenced by the way her leaders see her, and not what they know to be true – that Rhoda’s intuition is a gift from God.
Jacob King won’t be swayed by community speculation. He loves Rhoda, believes in her, and wants to build a future with her in Maine. But when his past comes calling and requires him to fulfill a major debt, can he shake its hold before it destroys what he has with Rhoda? Samuel has a secret of his own – one he’ll go to great lengths to keep hidden, even if it means alienating those closest to him. Throwing himself into rehabilitating the once-abandoned orchard, Samuel turns to a surprising new ally.
Can the three faithfully follow God’s leading and build a home and orchard in Maine? Or will this new beginning lead to more ruin and heartbreak?
Isn’t that cover gorgeous? Let’s get to know more about Cindy’s latest novel.
At the beginning of The Winnowing Season, Rhoda Byler and the King brothers are moving near Unity, Maine, to start a new Amish community. Are there actual Amish communities who have made a similar move?
There are, and even though moving to a new state is never easy for anyone, the Amish face more challenges when doing so. I heard about the new Amish settlement in Maine through my Amish friends in Pennsylvania. They shared about their friends and relatives who moved there. But, as with all my stories, I used a fictional name for the town to keep anyone from thinking the story is a depiction of any particular family from a real place.
Before I begin writing I research an actual location, and I rely heavily on certain facts shared with me by Amish friends. Then I meld all the information together and let my imagination have a grand time.
If my fictional story is too closely related to a true event, that can cause an invasion of privacy for the real Amish people involved—even if only by their Amish neighbors who are trying to put two and two together or think they know which person or persons are being depicted.
Because the real settlement in Unity, Maine, is small, I wanted to be very clear that the love story in my Amish Vines and Orchards series is not based on an actual Amish family living there.
In The Winnowing Season, my characters move to Orchard Bend, just beyond the borders of Unity. Many interesting aspects of the how the Amish really live in Maine are brought out in the story, such as new rules and some freer ways of handling Amish life. Some of those newer ways may not seem all that freeing to us. But they have caused other Amish to consider moving there—despite the brutal winters.
Maine was very welcoming of the Amish, and that played into my story too. Even though Rhoda falls into some serious legal trouble, her non-Amish neighbors quietly stand by her.
Rhoda’s gift of intuition is at odds with the leaders in her community. How does she learn to accept her gift as a blessing?
It’s quite a journey for her. In part because she needs someone strong enough to love her despite her tarnished reputation and despite that she’s a lightning rod for trouble. She also needs a revelation from God that her sense of intuition, as strong as it is at times, is not an evil she must combat.
The topic of Rhoda’s gift is a very delicate one, and I’m praying my way through it. Many of us have gifts we repress because we think they’re wrong for one reason or another. Not many years ago, most women suppressed a number of gifts in order to keep their place in the home as society saw fit. Did God only give gifts to men? Were God’s only gifts to women the ones that could be used inside the home to help them tend to their families?
Women still wrestle with finding a balance between what we’re capable of doing because of His gifts and what we feel God has freed us to do. To a lesser degree, even today’s younger generation of women often feel crushed between the two worlds of love-duty and love-ability. Many women feel torn between family responsibilities and following any gifts that might take us outside that world. Although Rhoda’s journey is different, in that her gift is often judged as evil regardless of how she lives the rest of her life, her crisis of conscience is not that different from our own. If her ability is from God, what does He want her to do with it?
In Acts 16:16, we see Paul enter Philippi, Macedonia, where a slave girl who told fortunes for her master’s profit continually followed them, shouting who they were. Because of Paul’s accurate understanding of her ability and his response, we are very leery of that kind of ability even today.
But is it possible that an all-seeing God may give His children insights, forewarnings, or even post-cognition to help them at certain times? Would an Amish girl ever be able to accept such a gift? If she represses it, is she grieving or disobeying God? If she gives in, is she grieving or disobeying God? If her father wants her to run from her gift, is it sin for her to ignore his authority? As you can see, Rhoda is in a dilemma.
A secret from Jacob’s past threatens to destroy his relationship with Rhoda. How do we see him wrestle with the ghosts from his past?
Despite his secrets, he’s a truly good man. His inner character makes him unable to abandon an Englisch (non-Amish) friend who is caught in those secrets as well. He’s doing his best to build a future with an Amish woman he adores. Jacob is twenty-three years old, and he finally has his first girlfriend—Rhoda Byler—yet he must leave her for a spell in order to protect her while helping his Englisch friend. Jacob’s heart and mind are fully vested in getting free of his ghosts and building a life with Rhoda. She wants that too. But does a good man’s past have the power to make him unequally yoked with the only woman he’s ever kissed?
What challenges do Rhoda and the King brothers face as the start this new community?
The first challenge is the logistical one. They must get carriages and livestock to Maine, along with whatever they’ll need to live until the first harvest. Their next challenge is in establishing themselves as independent from their English neighbors. But that’s not easy when there aren’t any Amish blacksmiths, dry-goods stores, teachers, church leaders, or carpenters to rely on. The Amish believe in living off the land and using the safety net of trusting in other Amish. What happens when there are no other Amish to turn to?
Did you learn anything interesting from your research for the Amish Vines and Orchards series?
I’ve had a great time with this series, and I’ve learned some fascinating aspects of Amish life that I’ve incorporated into the story. One thing that means the most to me was digging into the research of apple orchards through the experiences of my husband’s ancestors.
For nearly fifty years, Raymond Woodsmall Sr., my husband’s grandfather, was an overseer for an apple orchard in Leominster, Massachusetts. My father-in-law and his younger brother, Jack, worked on that apple orchard from the time they were little boys until they left home to serve in the military.
That orchard is now called Sholan Farms, and the original farmhouse was built in the 1730s. Although Raymond Woodsmall Sr. never owned the land or the house, he moved into the original farmhouse before the Depression as a young man in his prime and remained there as an overseer of the orchard until the 1970s, when he was no longer capable of such hard work. He moved from the original farmhouse to a smaller place on the land, but continued helping with the orchard until a few years before he died.
Grandpa Woodsmall saw the apple orchard through droughts, floods, blizzards, pestilence, and the worst tragedy of all, the Great Hurricane of 1938, which nearly destroyed the orchard. He and his two sons worked long, hard years to restore the apple trees.
In 1982 the house sustained damage from a fire, and what was left of the home was dismantled, sold, and shipped to unknown destinations. Later, the orchard was abandoned. It was still empty when I first walked that land. While viewing the acres of dying trees, I longed for what had once existed. That was the seed to my writing Amish Vines and Orchards. And as my husband and I learned the rich history of Sholan Farms through Uncle Jack Woodsmall, I discovered that the way apple orchard farming was done during the Depression and until the 1970s is very similar to the way the Amish handle their apple orchards today.
Want to hang out with Cindy more? Keep up with her on her website!