Amish Romance Novels: No Bonnet Rippers

Amish love stories, or "bonnet books," are the hot new trend in romance fiction

Illustration by Ryan Heshka for TIME

Put aside that titillating vampire lit . Author Beverly Lewis has come up with a new magic formula for producing best-selling romance novels: humility, plainness and no sex. Lewis' G-rated books, set among the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, have sold more than 12 million copies, as bodice rippers make room for "bonnet books," chaste romances that chronicle the lives and loves of America's Amish.

Lewis has just published a new novel, The Secret , set in the idyllic village of Bird-in-Hand, which debuts on the New York Times paperback best-seller list April 19 at No. 10. Spurred by...

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