Book Giveaway!!

A new book from Dorcas Smucker? Why yes, I'd like to review it. I'm not quite finished yet but so far it has not disappointed .

Now if you are into murder, intrigue, car chases, or other wild scenes this is not the book for you. But if you are into stories from real life in a busy house with teens, a family business, a husband who is a minister with a sprinkling of a ninety-some-year-old grandpa this is the book for you.  Each chapter is a short story that you can read while you drink that cup of tea, rock the baby, or after everyone has hiked off to bed and the house is quiet. She has an enviable knack for observation, and putting regular daily living into a readable story. I rarely can remember the funny stuff my kids say when I finally sit down at my keyboard.  She is open and honest about her experiences as a minister's wife, living with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and growing older.

In the chapter entitled The Minister's Wife  she quotes this conversation:

"Are you looking forward to the conference?" my sister asked.
"I guess so," I said.  "Except that nobody intimidates me like a Mennonite minister's wife."
"But!" she sputtered. "Your're a Mennonite minister's wife!"
"Not really," I said, and then whispered, "I'm actually just pretending."

She makes me laugh at some of the absurdities of our "plain" life.  Don't be worried though, she explains things so that all her audience can identify with her stories.
There is a limit of what she can explain and I heartily agree with her decision in the chapter Telling Your Own Story where she talks about the new fad of "Amish" romance novels.

If you're part of the culture, you instinctively understand the subtleties that are almost impossible to explain to someone outside of it. 
    This year, just a few days before Halloween, I received yet another request to help an author who wants to write a novel about conservative Mennonites. She wants to make sure she's authentic with the details, she said.
     Perhaps I was too harsh in my refusal, as she seemed more serious and scholarly than most, and I applauded her desire to not be offensive. But I couldn't bring myself to help her, not only because of all the details the defy explaining, but because I have come to believe that the story you tell best is your own.
    Back when Margaret and I were young, the Amish and Mennonites--sister denominations under the Anabaptist roof-- were an obscure subculture that few Americans had herd of and even fewer admired. It wasn't unusual to be harassed and mocked.
     Then, for reasons I will never understand, Anabaptist became cool. Bizarre TV shows featured the producers' visions of Amish and Mennonite life, giving an entire generation of watchers a completely distorted picture. Or so I am told. I don't watch TV.
     An avalanche of novels featuring the Amish but written almost entirely by the "Englisch" poured out of  Christian publishing houses. "Bonnet fiction," the industry called them. They range from well-structured but subtly "off" to simply horrifying, with boxy Photo-shopped  kapps on blond girls with eyeliner on the front covers.
     Struggling authors saw a potential bonanza, and too many of them somehow found me, hoping that I would be that genuine source who could lend the stamp of authenticity to their hopeful story of young Lizzie pinning on her kapp, enjoying her Rumspringa without getting shunned, and falling in love with the handsome English neighbor, leading to a crisis of soul to be solved by following her heart in a very suburban- American way.
      Always, these manuscripts were all wrong, from the opening, "Ach, such a beautiful day it is, " to the individualistic American approach to decisions. The characters followed certain rules and flouted others but always made the choice all wrong in vague ways that I couldn't put into words.
     "But I found a glossary on the Internet, " one author said, "and it said that 'ach' means 'oh'."
     "But it's always negative," I said. "Ach, the pigs are out again,"not "Ach, it's a beautiful day."

See that "ach" thing is something I knew, but I'm not sure that I would have been able to pinpoint it.

OK, enough of quotes, what is the title? Glad you asked. It's called Fragrant Whiffs of Joy . And I have one to give away.

How shall I get you to enter the contest? I don't like to make things too simple, I need to make you work a little bit. Let's see, how about.... Yeah.

Leave a comment with  a ten word description of  what is going on in your life these days. I will do a drawing on Monday the 20th. Leave a message on my blog, on my FB page or a direct email to pufuquan@gmail.com  I will need a way to contact you if you are the winner so please identify yourself.

If you don't want to mess around with waiting on a free book you can just go straight to Amazon and buy it here for $15 the Kindle version is also available.
Or buy if directly from the author  Dorcas Smucker at 31148 Substation Drive, Harrisburg, OR 97446. Books are $12 each plus $2 postage. Checks or PayPal accepted.