Forget Team Edward. Bring on Team Amos! According to an article today in The Wall Street Journal, readers are going buggy for a new literary genre: Amish romances, a.k.a. “bonnet books.”
It sounds crazy, right? I think not! In fact, it makes perfect sense that the genre would begin attracting fans. After all, there are more similarities than one would think between romances about the Amish and ever-popular vamp tales. Forbidden love, anyone? And like many YA bloodsucker novels, bonnet books are generally G-rated — making them attractive to parents and youngin’s alike — and penned mostly by women (who, interestingly enough, are not Amish themselves).
I have yet to read a bonnet book, but now I’m more than curious. Would you get drawn into stories of forbidden love in places like Lancaster County, Pa., Shelf Lifers? Or are you already addicted?
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i swear, everytime a book in mentioned on this site, it is ALWAYS compared to twilight. ALWAYS
Deborah: Yeah, they cover a lot of Twilight. But I also see posts on the blog about James Patterson and prize winners and literary fiction and graphic novels. Like, right below this post.
One in every five books sold last year was a Twilight book. Like it or not, and I don’t, it’s socially relevant.
Will they sparkle as they drive their horse and buggy around?
What should they be writing about? I think more info on best sellers or books that should be best sellers…new authors…old classics…
What America REALLY needs (sarcasm) is a book about Amish vampires! (Actually, I take back my sarcasm. That might actually be entertaining.)
That was maybe my favorite post of the day. Someone should get on it immediately.
i have word open, and i’m getting started
agreed
i think i might check this book out, but like someone else said, i’m tired of lots of books being compared to twilight. how on earth is this amish book like twilight? this isn’t a very good article. i’d rather read about the amish than vampires.
Brody, now I’m wishing I’d included an Amish vampire in my book. Maybe in the sequel?
Diana Laurence (author of “How to Catch and Keep a Vampire”)
Certainly these wouldn’t be popular among the youngin’s. Just look at Gossip Girl’s sustained popularity. But I’m sure the steamy romance becomes even steamier when there is no electric lighting at night. What else is there to do?
Cultures of sexual repression have always been ripe for stories of romance. That’s why the Victorian age is so fascinating to our culture now, all the restraint & repression is practically exotic, unknown to us. In a society like the Amish, riddled with taboos, attempting to tell a story that leaves a white elephant in the center is an effective devices of storytelling (even when used by second-rate, tripe bodice-ripers – or rather – mutza suit ripers).
Exactly. And Twilight is a perfect example of this – what we are reading about is not the repressive nature of Vampires, but the sexually repressive culture of Mormonism the author, Stephanie Meyer, was raised in.
Someone wrote about Mormons being sexually repressed, sic: ” … the sexually repressive culture of Mormonism the author, Stephanie Meyer, was raised in”
Mormonism is not sexually repressive. It is as if Gemma is saying that is people do not appreciate her taking a pee on the sidewalk outside her home, they must be “Urinarily repressed.” What a nonsense.
Mormons are not repressed, but believe and are taught that chastity is Godly, and that sexuality is not for public display, and that sexual purity in bride and groom until they are legally married is a characteristic of high moral standards, in contrast to Gemma’s obvious liking for free and easy sex, when, where, and with whom she likes.
Making a vice out of a virtue, as Gemma has done here, is an old trick that falls foul of its own clumsiness, and is easily detected as nothing more than a crude slam made by someone not altogether au fait with the subject on which they venture a vagrant opinion.
Ronnie Bray – “In Praise of Virtue”
I work at a Publishing house and we are about to put out many new Amish fiction books over the next few months. Coincidentally enough I was just today arguing that the reason the Amish books are on the rise is for the same reason the vampire books hit so big- it’s forbidden romance. This article’s writer hit the nail on the head.
As a resident in the amish part of pennsyltucky, I have to laugh at this. Well, I would if the shunning of those who engage in forbidden love wasn’t so damn cold-hearted.
Oh, and for those of youse who believe the amish are sexually repressed, let’s keep in mind that the average amish family has something like 6 – 8 children. The plain in buggies probably get it on more often than do the english in cars.
http://run4chocolate.wordpress.com
Vampires don’t really fall under “forbidden” romance. Dumb, yes – really dumb – but I don’t think there are any real laws against it. If any religions expressly forbid it, enlighten me.
The Fellowship of the Sun
I could totally read these!
http://www.theprettyproject.com
“Would you get drawn into stories of forbidden love in places like Lancaster County, Pa.”
You gotta be kidding. I’d rather read about forbidden sex in a Shaker community. The Amish do not forbid love, by the way, nor do they forbid sex. The Shakers were a sexless community. The Amish population replenishes itself; the Shakers were unable to do this in principle.
Forbidden love is, it seems to me, an inherently boring topic. It’s either a variation on the Romeo & Juliet theme, an injunction against same-sex relationships, a rant about incest, or a paean about the joys of what used to be called miscegenation. William Carlos Williams wrote a love poem to some plums:
This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Love stories are for the lonely, the left-out, and the emotionally expansive but intellectually limited.
Love stories about the Amish written by women who are not Amish are bound to be nothing more than bull-pucky and not worth the time spent wolfing down the words.
First thing that stands out about peoples misconceptions about Amish are#1 People (majority) know next to nothing about them. and #2 each Amish group is different in some large or small ways.Amish are not like Christian churches you can not make a profession and join.But their desire to be left alone does make them a target for this type of thing .
If “the Amish population replenishes itself [while] the Shakers were unable to do this,” I wonder how the poor old Shakers (who are not quite dead yet I believe) have managed to keep going so many years… They decline to procreate, and “replenish themselves” from outside the community — potentially a much more prolific method surely.
The Shakers relied on adoption, both formal and informal, to keep their community alive.
I think there are a smattering of actual Shakers left around Sabbath-day Lake but I’ve not heard or read about them in quite some time.
I believe there are 2 – two!! – Shaker women left at Sabbathday Lake north of Portland, ME. Both well into their 80s’. The other Shaker communities have long shut down.
btw – in Amish country, Ephrata to be exact, is a place called the Cloister. This community, long since gone, was similar to the Shakers in the “no sex” thing. Problem was, the leader was boinking nearly every female of any age. Like many xtain sects, much of it was hypocrisy.
I agree with the few people above.
What are they thinking when not exploring such a great opportunity… An Amish Vampire and a city girl stuck in the community by a nutty mom that married an Amish dude.
Amish Vampire novel is waaay over due.
Realistic or WHAT??
Agreed again! I actually clicked it half expecting to see a story about Amish vampires being promoted and I have to admit was a little disappointed when I flipped here…LOL. Cannot wait for the movie on Amish vampires.
I hope not.
I also hope people realize that there’s a huge difference between these outsider’s-view romances and the first-hand books written about various plainfolk and plain communities. Especially those written by people in and/or involved with said groups.
Granted, we set ourselves up for misunderstanding and assumptions when we separate or choose to separate from the greater part of society, so this kind of writing is going to be around either way. I just hope people realize it’s on par with any other romantic fiction.
P.S. – Anabaptists of any kind will never sparkle. Too tacky for us.
i just can to say, don’t judge a book by a cover.. this book maybe have something spesial..
one can hop I’m sick of the word vampire
*hope
My mom has been reading these Amish romance novels for years, and her kids routinely make fun of her for it. When she isn’t reading Lori Wick or Karen Kingsbury or whatever random female Christian-romance novelist, you can find her enjoying the bonnet books. For all I know, she’s already read “A Widow’s Hope.” Also, it doesn’t help that we live near Holmes County, Ohio. To be honest, these books are awfully site-specific.
I’ve read several of these, and thought they were pretty good – if a little chaste. I had no idea they were called “bonnet books” though. I guess you learn something new every day.
I think I will become Amish
then. It might be nice to try
a new culture. I bet their blood
is rich in culture.
Count Vlad Devio
countdevio.com
Why do I feel like I’m not learning anything here?
FOR BEGINNERS
Don’t let the stunning graphics and good looks of this blog fool ya’… if you want to know how to make money online… for free… without all the crap… do yourself a favor… get a cup of coffee and do a little reading… Griz
I have to say that this and twilight are stupid. Vampire romance… give me a break.
A point about the Amish and their “G-ratedness” – google “Rumspringa” – which is when they are set loose into the world at 16. Amish girls are free to have suitors sleep over, with them in their beds. They have a lot of drug and alcohol problems. It’s pretty wild. But then they have to make a choice whether or not to be Amish. If they make that choice, them put all of that behind them. (They don’t get shunned unless they make the promise to God to be Amish and then go back on that – they can still hang with their family if they choose to not practice from the start).
no amish are not vampires wat are u thinking?im half vampire becu i just like the taste of blood i even allways try to make my lip bleed
i have read several bonnet books and have found them quite refreshing. There is a simple lesson in each book. They also conatin many problems that each of us face each day. Grab one and you will be hooked
I do not think so