Amish Paranormal Fiction: An Interesting Subgenre

Picture this.

You’re in a Lifeway Christian Store, looking for the newest Wanda Brunstetter or Beverly Lewis Amish book. You pass through the aisles of tomes, running your hand along the spines in anticipation of your next read. There’s the Shunning, an Amish Christmas, the Dakota series—but you’ve read all those. 

Then you spot it. It’s got a dark bluish-green color, and something bright shines in the sky. A young Amish woman is pictured on the cover, covering her chin as if she sees something in the sky that scares her. Bright red lettering spells out the title: Forsaken. The first in the Plain Fear series, by Leanna Ellis.

What is this? You read the back cover and scoff. Amish—vampires? Is this an actual theme in Amish fiction? 

Actually, it is. 

Amish paranormal fiction is a somewhat-hidden subgenre of Amish fiction. You have all the normal themes present in traditional Amish fiction—courtship, love, farm life, and faith—but there’s an added paranormal element. 

Take Forsaken, for example. It follows a young Amish woman named Hannah who is pining over the death of her love, Jacob. But it turns out Jacob is a vampire who goes by Akiva (a derivative of Jacob) and is set on trying to get back to Hannah. There’s the added element of a love triangle—Jacob’s brother Levi loves Hannah, but he knows Hannah is still grieving for Jacob. The story revolves around Jacob trying to get back to Hannah, while Levi pursues her. Amish Vampires in Space by Kerry Nietz revolves around vampires chasing the Amish people, who live on the planet of Alabaster and board a cargo ship in space to try and escape the vampires. And Grounded by G. P. Ching follows a young girl named Lydia whose father is sick and sent to the outside world for medical treatment. Lydia is encouraged to follow her father into the world of the Englischers, and when she does, horrors await her.

So adding a paranormal element to Amish fiction is quite normal, and has been in practice for quite some time now. But what do these stories have in common?

Well, they all emphasize faith and religion. The Amish are a very pious people, and these stories place the most emphasis on faith above all else—something that is also very prominent in ‘regular’ Amish fiction as well.

So the next time you see an Amish paranormal fiction at your local bookstore, don’t scoff at it! Appreciate it for the work of culture and literature it is. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even like it.