Welcome to the Blog + Review Tour for The Shop Down the Lane by Leslie Gould, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!
About the Book
Title: The Shop Down the Lane
Series: Letters from Lancaster County
Author: Leslie Gould
Publisher: Bethany House
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Genre: Amish Romance
Leslie Gould delights in this sweet and humorous Amish romance reminiscent of The Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail.
Lois Yoder has always found solace in the quiet life of Paradise, Pennsylvania, where she manages a gift shop that reflects her Amish community's simple values. Her tranquil world is upended when Moses Lantz, a former Amishman turned Mennonite and the man who broke her heart, buys the shop with ambitious plans to transform it into a tourist hub--a move that Lois fiercely opposes.
Seeking a distraction, Lois joins a bird watchers' circle letter under an alias. But unknown to her, Moses does the same at the urging of a friend. While their correspondence blossoms into a tender romance, the enmity between Lois and Moses in real life only intensifies. Can they overcome their animosity and embrace the love they've found through their letters, or will their stubborn hearts keep them apart forever?
This heartwarming Amish romance includes themes of bird watching, correspondence by letters, enemies to lovers, and family secrets for readers of Beverly Lewis, Wanda E. Brunstetter, and Shelley Shepard Gray.
PURCHASE LINKS: Goodreads | Bethany House | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | ChristianBook | Bookshop | BookBub
Excerpt
pp 14-15She turned her attention to tidying the shelves. She guessed John Miller wanted to marry soon. And Lois needed to marry. The bishop was intent on her not living alone.
The door buzzed again. This time Scotty entered the shop with a serious expression on his face. He cleared his throat as he approached Lois. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Alarmed, she stumbled backward. Had the books been off the day before? Had she ordered too many birdhouses? Not enough greeting cards?
He ran his hand through his gray hair. “I’ve had a couple of offers on the store.”
Lois gasped. “What?”
“Barb wants me to retire. This time for good.”
Lois felt ill. “What are you talking about?”
“We hope to be in Florida by October.”
Lois put her hand to her chest. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shook his head.
She placed her free hand on the shelf to steady herself. “What about the farm?”
“We’ll be selling it too.” His expression turned sympathetic for a moment and then, with a bit of a quiver in his voice, he said, “I’ve been talking with a prospective buyer. I’ve told this person I’ll only sell the shop if he promises to keep you on and let you continue to live in the apartment.”
Lois opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“I wanted to tell you, so you wouldn’t be surprised.” He stepped behind the counter and opened the cash register. He held up a key. “I need to show Moses the shed.”
She sputtered, “Moses?”
“Yes. Moses Lantz.” Scotty gave her a questioning look. “Do you know him?”
Lois put her hand over her mouth. She had—she didn’t anymore. But she did know he was the last person in the world she wanted to buy Paradise Found.
© 2025 by Leslie Gould
Published by Bethany House Publishers
Minneapolis, Minnesota
BethanyHouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved.
Also Available
About the Author
Leslie Gould is a Christy Award-winning and #1 bestselling author of more than 48 novels, including four Lancaster County Amish series. She holds a bachelor's degree in history and an MFA in creative writing. She enjoys church history, research trips, and hiking in the Pacific Northwest. She and her husband live in Portland, Oregon, and have four adult children and two grandchildren.
Connect with Leslie by visiting lesliegould.com to follow her on social media and subscribe to email updates.
Author Interview
Q: What inspired you to write
The Shop Down the Lane?
Leslie: This story is the first in my Letters from Lancaster County series, so I needed to create characters and a plot that had to do with letters. I chose a circle letter (where people exchange letters in a circular, group setting) device, complemented by an anonymous pen pal trope. However, a set of stories spanning a couple of centuries also influenced my story, starting with the novel
Pride and Prejudice (1813), then the Hungarian play
Parfumerie (1937), the movie
The Shop Around the Corner (1940), and finally
You’ve Got Mail (1998). The first three stories influenced
You’ve Got Mail, and the three latter ones also have anonymous pen pal tropes. It was a lot of fun to explore the connections between all four of these stories and plop elements from them into a story set in Amish country with an Amish heroine and a Mennonite hero and a circle letter.
Q: How long did it take to write this book?
Leslie: It took about five months to write the first draft and then a couple of months to rewrite it after receiving my editorial letter from my publisher. I especially love the rewriting process!
Q: What surprised you while writing this novel?
Leslie: This is definitely a sweet romance and that’s the main focus, but a side plot is the friendship between my heroine, Lois, and her best friend, Amy. The importance of their friendship became much more central to the story than I’d first planned and really took on a life of its own, which was a pleasant surprise. It was a reminder of how important it is that we have support and other healthy relationships in our lives, not just romance. ☺
Q: Do you have a favorite quote from
The Shop Down the Lane?
Leslie: “As he kicked the scooter around the curve just before the bridge, they both leaned into the turn, flying together.”The heroine, Lois, doesn’t have a horse and buggy and rides her scooter nearly everywhere she goes. There’s also a birding theme in the story. This quote combines Lois’s mode of transportation and the bird motif through the flying image.
Q: When did you first know you wanted to be an author?
Leslie: I dreamed of being an author since the sixth grade, but it wasn’t until my twenties when I started writing short stories that I truly wanted to be one because I finally believed I could be!
Q: Would you share something about yourself that most readers wouldn’t know?
Leslie: I was hired to curate a museum in Ashland, Oregon when I was 23. Later, I set my first novel in Ashland, and I’ve have used what I learned in that job in multiple dual-time and historical novels that I’ve written through the years. It gave me a strong sense of history as applied to a community and a timeline of how world events impacted Americans living in small communities through the decades of our existence as the USA.
Q: What are you currently reading?
Leslie: I’m reading Joanne Lehman’s
Leah’s Faith, and I’ve just started listening to Jane Kirkpatrick’s
Beneath the Bending Skies.
Q: What is your favorite genre to read?
Leslie: I can’t choose just one! I read everything from literary fiction to sweet romances. I love reading Amish novels by my writer friends, but I also love World War II dual-time stories and historical fiction too.
Q: What is your favorite hobby?
Leslie: Because I consider reading essential to life and not a hobby, I have to say gardening. We live in the city, but I have a garden plot, a row of raspberry bushes, lots of flower beds, and a large collection of containers that I fill with flowers. I love being outside whenever I can be, but I especially take time in the morning in the late spring, summer, and early fall to water and weed and enjoy “watching” my plants grow.
Q: What is your favorite season and why?
Leslie: I really love summer—the warmth, the produce, the flowers, and the extra time spent with friends and family. We love hiking and kayaking and gardening (as mentioned) and generally spending as much time outdoors as possible. We live in Portland, Oregon so after a winter and spring of lots of rain, I really appreciate sunny days!
Tour Giveaway
(1) winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card and a print copy of The Shop Down the Lane!
Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight May 13, 2025 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on May 20, 2025. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
Giveaway is subject to JustRead Publicity Tours Giveaway Policies.
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