Hester takes charge
(Book)

Hester, the startlingly beautiful Native American who was rescued as an infant by an Amish couple, now lives in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She shares a house with Bappie King, another Amish woman, living their independent lives in the fast-growing mid-18th-century city. Bappie runs a highly successful stand at the downtown farmers market; Hester is Bappies assistant when she isnt out in the city nursing desperately sick children and their impoverished parents with her tinctures, teas, and rubs. When Noah invites Hester to join him on a visit to their childhood home, Hester can no longer ignore her buried anger at her adopted father or her bitterness toward Annie, his second wife. Nor can Hester deny the tempting thrill of spending time with the steady but sensitive Noah, who since childhood showed special care for Hester.