With her Amish parents’ twentieth anniversary approaching, eighteen-year-old Sylvia Miller stumbles across a surprise-the old brass tinderbox her clockmaker father keeps in his Lancaster County shop has been left unlocked. Against her better judgment, Sylvia opens the cherished heirloom, not realizing that what she is about to discover will splinter apart her happy life.

Sylvia’s bewilderment grows when her father confronts her about snooping in the box. To her amazement, the respected convert to the Old Order reacts as if he has something to hide.

Burdened by the weight of his deception, Earnest Miller decides he must reveal the details about his past to his beloved wife, Rhoda. The long-kept secret alters everything for the close-knit family, jeopardizing Earnest and Rhoda’s relationship, as well as threatening Sylvia’s recent engagement to the preacher’s grandson.

Can the Millers find a way forward through the turmoil to a place of forgiveness and acceptance?

My Review

I am such a great fan of Beverly Lewis and her novels. The way she writes with such detail makes each setting richly atmospheric which holds the reader’s attention.  The Tinderbox is very suspenseful from the start. I immediately wanted to know what was inside of the Tinderbox just from the front cover. This book is not fast-paced but is written with precision and depth for the development of each character. The Tinderbox encompasses the lives of the Miller family from Hickory Hollow.  Each character plays a very important role in this novel which ties in nicely in the end.

Beverly Lewis’s knowledge of and insight into the Amish community is very well depicted in The Tinderbox as she paints an exquisite picture of Hickory Hollow and the community. There are many layers to this story which I thought would become overly complicated to follow. However, this book reads very well. The plot seems to involve a series of learning to overcome sudden trials and disruptions that often seem to emerge in our lives. I was unable to put the book down once each character was introduced.

I could feel the anxiousness and nervousness as Slyvia walked into Dats (her father, Earnest Millers) clock shop to dust and soon discovered the tinderbox accidentally unlocked. Curiosity and temptation certainly took the best of Slyvia as she often wondered as a child what was inside her Dats box. How will her discovery affect her mother and father’s marriage and his position as a well-known Amish clock-maker in the community? Will Earnest be able to overcome the hardships of being grief-stricken from the loss of his neighbor and closest confidant all the while facing a secret he had never revealed as an Englisher before becoming Amish? Will this secret destroy his marriage and affect Slyvia’s engagement to Titus?

You won’t be able to put this book down once the secret is revealed and snowballs into the Miller family. Lewis skillfully has a way of tying each character together as events slowly unfold. One character that is well worth knowing in this novel is the Wise Woman of Hickory Hollow, Ella Mae. I could see myself sitting down with Ella Mae having a hot cup of tea just like the women of Hickory Hollow. Ella Mae always seems to point the ladies who come visit or talk with her in the right direction. I just love these two quotes from Ella Mae.

“Have ya fallen so far that the Lord can’t reach down and pick you up?”

“I tell you what…why not take a long walk and just talk to your Savior like He’s walkin’ alongside ya. I used to do this all the time, before I got up in years — walk and talk with Jesus, our elder Bruder.” (p 197)

As Slyvia and Rhoda both took the wise woman’s advice, I could not help but look up from the page and smile at each one, mother and daughter took the advice from the wise lady. This moment of the book is very touching and relatable as I too have found comfort walking and finding comfort in God’s creation as Slyvia and Rhoda had. 

“She started to pray but felt embarrassed about speaking words into the air when always before she’d prayed silent rote prayers. After a few excruciating moments of this, Rhoda sensed she was finally growing more comfortable telling the Lord everything troubling her. And somehow, He was there in the gentle breeze, listening to every word she whispered. He was also there in the fragrance and the cascading beauty of the blooming wisteria growing along the horse fence in the pasture where Earnest and little Sylvie had planted them years ago. But most of all, His presence was firmly rooted in her heart.” (p 199)

“Turning onto West Cattail Road, Sylvia walked along the dirt shoulder, listening to the throaty bullfrogs near a small pond up yonder. Within a couple of hours or so, the meadowlands would be filled with hundreds of twinkling lightning bugs. She passed a cluster of honeysuckle bushes and was tempted to do what Dat had taught her as a little girl-what grandpa Zimmerman tought him-to pull out the stamen and lick the tiny drop of syrupy nectar at its end. This melancholy evening, however, it was enough to simply take in the familiar scent.” ( p 237).

Beverly Lewis leaves us off with a cliffhanger which I just simply love because now I am beyond thrilled to read the continuation of this plot twist in The Timepiece. Lewis delivers a great ending to this book by introducing a new character and stranger to Hickory Hollow, Adeline Pelham. Who is this person and why does she need to speak to desperately with Earnest? Where has Sylvia seen this girl before? These are some of the intriguing questions Beverly Lewis leaves us with to be answered and continued in the Timepiece which will be available, on September 17, 2019.

The Tinderbox

By Beverly Lewis / Bethany House

Pre-Order The Timepiece (Available September 17th, 2019)

The Timepiece, Softcover

By Beverly Lewis / Bethany House

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