Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion. Jessie Sullivan's conventional life has been "molded to the smallest space possible." So when she is called home to cope with her mother's startling and enigmatic act of violence, Jessie finds herself...

With the Lichfield County Fair just around the corner, Dorsetville is a beehive of activity. But is there still time for faith and compassion to help a failing carnival, an aged debutante, and a disillusioned teen?

"Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering debut novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and unsanctioned love"--

Pax is the motto of Brede Abbey. Yet its peace is the peace of God--"not," as Godden brings to her readers' notice, "the world's peace." The walls of Brede witness life of unceasing work and prayer, little creature comfort, persistent disappointment and misunderstanding--yet a life of peace all the same, unswervingly joyful and loving. Into this life enters Philippa Talbot, ambitious, independent, successful, forsaking her beautifully arranged career...

YA-YAS IN BLOOM reveals the roots of the Ya-Yas' friendship in the 1930s and roars with all the raw power of Vivi Abbott Walker's 1962 T-Bird through sixty years of marriage, child-raising, and hair-raising family secrets.