I enjoy all Amish stories, but this one shines out as one of the very best, long and satisfying. Alexandra has been brought up as a Mennonite and knows she is adopted and arrived wrapped in an Amish quilt, but not until her father is on his death bed does he reveal that when she was handed to him and his wife, now long dead, they were also passed an exquisitely carved wooden box with two locks of hair and a letter written in High German. She also learns that it was her grandmother who brought her to them, insisting that she was dearly loved. Along with Alexandra’s (Lexie's) grieving for her beloved father, she struggles to cope with this new information and the fact that she has not been told this before. James, who she met at school, and now many years later is dating, is very supportive and with her very dear family friend Sophie’s encouragement, decides to have a break from her job as a nurse/midwife in Oregon, and seek temporary work in Philadelphia, to look for her birth mother and finally learn ‘her story.’ James is dismayed at her actions but agrees to keep in touch as a friend. So far, so good, but it doesn’t work out at all as she expected. She finds herself helping a lay midwife in Lancaster County among the Amish, and immediately seems to have been recognised. There are many twists and turns to this story, and I kept reading late into the night, intent on reaching the end.