To read Gail Godwin is to touch the very core of human experience. With inimitable grace and aching emotional precision, Godwin probes our own complexities in characters whose lives oscillate between success and struggle, stoic resolve and quixotic temptation, bitter disappointment and small, sacred joys. Now with Evensong, she again translates our everyday existence into soul-touching truths as she brings to brilliantly realized life the people of a small Smoky Mountain town--and a woman whose world is indelibly altered by them.

Parish churches have been at the heart of communities for more than a thousand years. But now, fewer than two in one hundred people regularly attend services in an Anglican church, and many have never been inside one. Since the idea of 'church' is its people, the buildings are becoming husks - staples of our landscapes, but without meaning or purpose. Some churches are finding vigorous community roles with which to carry on, but the institutional decline is widely seen as terminal. Yet for Richard Morris, post-war parsonages were the happy backdrop of his childhood. In Evensong he searches for what it was that drew his father and hundreds like him towards ordination as they came home from war in 1945. Along the way we meet all kinds of people - archbishops, chaplains, campaigners, bell-ringers, bureaucrats, archaeologists, gravediggers, architects, scroungers - and follow some of them to dark places. Part personal odyssey, part lyrical history, Evensong asks what churches stand for and what they can tell us; it explores why Anglicanism has often been fractious, and why it has become so diffuse. Spanning over two thousand years, it draws on new discoveries, reflects on the current state of the Church in England and ends amid the messy legacies of colonialism and empire.

'I've been waiting for a novel with vicars, rude old ladies, murder and sausage dogs ... et voila!' DAWN FRENCHCanon Daniel Clement is Rector of Champton. He has been there for eight years, living at the Rectory alongside his widowed mother - opinionated, fearless, ever-so-slightly annoying Audrey - and his two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda.When Daniel announces a plan to install a lavatory in church, the parish is suddenly (and unexpectedly) divided: as lines are drawn in the community, long-buried secrets come dangerously close to destroying the apparent calm of Champton. And then Anthony Bowness - cousin to Bernard de Floures, patron of Champton - is found dead at the back of the church, stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs.As the police moves in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel Clement is the only one who can try and keep his fractured community together... and catch a killer.

Jeff Powell is in over his head. He has a deadline to meet, an agent to satisfy, a barista to impress, and now, to top it all off, he's stuck in the world of his bestselling fantasy series. A world, it turns out, that doesn't even like him. Instead of deadlines, he's got dragons. Instead of an impatient agent, he's got characters who hate him. The girl of his dreams? Well, at least that's one less thing to worry about if he can't find his way home. He thought he knew his story inside and out, but as a growing evil closes in on the world he created, he'll learn just how deadly a fantasy can be. If you love stories about imagination and courage, of friendships and sacrifice, you'll love Evensong, the first book of the Andvell saga. Get it now. KEYWORDS: epic fantasy, dragon fantasy, dragon and mythical creatures, sword and sorcery, magic, witch, sorcerer, romance, free first in series, complete series, action adventure, strong friendships, sacrifice, alternate reality, alternate dimension, canadian author, canadian fiction

Since the introduction of the first girls’ choir at Salisbury Cathedral in 1991,there has been a growing demand for Evensong music for upper voices fromchurches and cathedrals with upper voice choirs.This unique collection, edited by David Halls, provides exciting new settings ofboth Preces and Responses, and the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. It includesmusic in a variety of styles and standards, and includes settings by some of ourleading church music composers, published here for the first time.

Growing up on a poor farm in Missouri, and learning how to sing opera from her war-scarred father, young Christina Cross has no idea that the powerful forces of good and evil, of music and war, will one day pull her into the maelstrom of World War II, compelling her to make life-or-death decisions about who she is fighting for in her life, and the price that she is willing to pay. [from back cover of book].

** Now available for pre-order (title will be released on April 29th) **Over the course of the past 25 years, a quiet but persistent revolution has been taking place in English cathedrals, in some larger churches in major towns and cities, as well as the chapels of university colleges. The numbers of people drawn by the distinctive musical character of their worship has risen significantly, with Choral Evensong becoming the locus of this persistent growth in the numbers of worshippers. A significant number of these people are under 40 years of age; and many others have, until now, lived their lives on the edges of the Church - if not completely beyond it.Simon Reynolds believes Evensong is providing a place of sanctuary for people seeking space for reflection in a frenetic world. It is becoming a significant part of the Church of England's mission. Lighten Our Darkness provides the definitive guide to Choral Evensong, and will be a fascinating introduction for newcomers to this historic form of worship, and for clergy and students wishing to explore its roots.

A penetrating and powerful novel about the deep undercurrents of love and regret in one Midwestern family. In 1939, Maggie Doud married Garfield Maguire. Now, fifty years on, she’s Margaret Maguire: a widow and a grandmother, unable to ignore the consequences of having married a cruel and arrogant man. Her daughters are strangers to each other, past hope of reconciling. Margaret’s granddaughter could be the one to break the cycle, but she can’t do it alone. Beautifully rendered and poignantly told, Evensong masterfully explores a woman’s desire for redemption and understanding at the end of her days.

Accepting a job to impersonate a noblewoman, medieval dancing girl Aline realizes that she is falling for the man she is meant to deceive, unaware that Sir James wants to marry her out of revenge against his sworn enemy. Original.