Sommerfield Trilogy Books in Order

The Sommerfield Trilogy is set in a contemporary Old Order Mennonite community in rural Kansas. Over three closely linked novels, Kim Vogel Sawyer follows several women who are pulled back toward the plain town of Sommerfeld and must decide what obedience, love, and belonging look like for them.

In Bygones, widowed Marie Koeppler has been gone from Sommerfeld for more than two decades. She left the Mennonite way to marry a truck driver and has built a quiet, respectable life in the outside world, raising her daughter Beth apart from the strict rules she once knew. When an elderly aunt dies, Beth unexpectedly inherits a house and small café back in Sommerfeld. The terms of the will require her to live there for a season, dragging a reluctant Marie back to the community she abandoned.

Their return is anything but smooth. Old friends are wary, thefts begin to plague the town, and suspicion quickly settles on the “outsiders.” At the same time, Marie’s first love, Henry Braun, discovers that his feelings for her never fully faded. The novel balances a gentle mystery with the deeper question of whether Marie will once again run when things grow difficult or finally allow God to restore what was broken.

Beginnings shifts the focus to Beth, who chooses to remain in Sommerfeld even after the terms of the inheritance are met. She opens a stained‑glass business and soon finds two very different men vying for her attention, steady Mennonite farmer Andrew Braun and charming non‑Mennonite businessman Sean McCauley. Beth is torn between the seeming safety of staying within the community and the excitement of a life unconstrained by its expectations.

In Blessings, readers meet Trina Muller, a young woman who has always loved caring for abandoned and injured animals. Her longing to attend veterinary school clashes with her parents’ belief that God’s will for her is to marry and stay close to home. As Trina wrestles with her calling, a newcomer to Sommerfeld complicates her decisions and forces her to consider whether following God might sometimes mean stepping outside familiar lines.

Across the trilogy, themes of forgiveness, identity, and vocation thread through quiet scenes of barn raisings, family dinners, and Sunday services. The books offer an inside look at Mennonite customs without romanticizing them, showing both the comfort of communal life and the pain when rules are valued more than people. Readers who enjoy contemporary stories set in plain communities but prefer a slower, more introspective pace will feel at home here.