The explosion of Amish fiction has drawn mixed reactions within Amish communities. Emma Smoker, 39, who was selling homemade pies -- apple, blueberry and shoofly -- in front of Rachel's, said the books don't interest her.

"I live the Amish life -- I don't need to read about it," said Mrs. Smoker, who is the sister of store owner Rachel Esh. From what her friends tell her, she added, the books "aren't quite true to life."

While there are no religious strictures against contemporary novels, the church has traditionally viewed fiction as distracting and deceitful, says Donald Kraybill, a senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, a religious studies center at Elizabethtown College.

Some Amish have nevertheless become avid fans. An Amish woman in Lancaster told Ms. Lewis that "all the women in our church district are reading your books under the covers, literally," Ms. Lewis said. Ms. Brunstetter, who lives in Tacoma, Wash., said several Amish families

. . . in northern Indiana have played host to book signings in their homes for her “Sisters of Holmes County” series.