Amish Country Undercover by Katy Lee

Amish Country Undercover by Katy Lee ISBN-13: 9781335402615 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Love Inspired Suspense Released: February 4th 2020

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Taking the reins of her father’s Amish horse-trading business, Grace Miller’s prepared for backlash over breaking community norms—but not for sabotage. Now someone’s willing to do anything it takes to make sure she fails, and it’s undercover FBI agent Jack Kaufman’s mission to stop them. But can Jack face his own Amish past long enough to shield Grace from a killer?


My Review:
Amish Country Undercover is a romantic suspense novel. Unfortunately, the author seemed to have only a superficial knowledge of horses and the Amish. In order for this book to work, several people who were very familiar with horses and who were familiar with the specific horses (either from careful study or from daily contact) didn't notice when one horse was switched for another. Grace goes to a track to buy the standardbreds that are too slow to race. Someone is switching out the horse she bought with valuable, fast thoroughbred horses. For those who don't know, thoroughbreds and standardbreds look different and race differently. Even if they switched horses of a similar color (which doesn't seem to be the case), a horse person would notice the difference. The author also made mistakes about things like hay (rather than straw) being used as bedding and a sulky being referred to as a cart.

So much of the story didn't come across as realistic to me. The hospital security was completely lacking (as Jack, undercover, was able to carry a hidden gun around, and unknown workers were trusted even when hospital personnel knew Grace was in danger). A nurse gave a patient's medical information to an unknown person who was in an area he wasn't supposed to be. And so on.

While the main characters were likable, they both came across as horribly inept. Grace was supposed to be good at identifying horses suitable to be used as Amish buggy horses, but she didn't even notice that the horses she's bringing home weren't the ones she's buying. The hero twice fell for obvious ruses to get him away from something he's protecting. When he realized the first ruse, that should have clued him into who was doing this scheme, but he completely overlooked that. There was suspense from repeated attempts to steal horses, kidnappings, and attempts kill Grace and Jack. There was no sex or bad language.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.