MORNING STAR, BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 – now available in paperback!
A genre-busting, gender-bending Vatican thriller. What happens when everything you know is thrown into doubt? And you’re the Pope? The recently elected Irish Pope Patrick has plans for his future Church. Then he is attacked in St Peter’s Square. Cardinals turn against him. Shocking revelations threaten his traditional status and his faith. In this novel where nothing is as it seems, Catholicism and modern morality are held in tension. Pope Patrick has to face challenges and make choices he could never have imagined.
‘This is a strange and strangely touching novel and it is also written with great elegance and authority. It tackles head on some of the most challenging issues for the Roman Catholic Church around gender and sexuality and at the same time has some of the loveliest, most persuasive, writing about personal prayer that I have ever encountered in fiction.’ – Sara Maitland
‘Virgin and Child cleverly merges crime with Catholicism and piety with a dangerous love. Pope Patrick, the Irish Pope, is famed for his humanity but unaware of the subversive forces plotting his destruction. The novel is wonderfully original and absorbing, from the halls of the Vatican to its explosive conclusion.’ – Mary Flanagan
And some prime book blogger reaction:
‘Beautifully written, it’s articulate and compassionate… Thought provoking and unputdownable.’ Lesley Budge, The Bookwormery
‘The most conceptually striking novel I’ve read this year… nothing short of genius.’ Julie Ryan, All Things Bookie
‘Strangely moving and intensely thoughtful…’ Joules Barham, Northern Reader
‘Part thriller, part mystery, part who-dun-it… a truly original story’ Angela Crowther, Promoting Crime Fiction
‘Virgin & Child is a fantasy, but meticulous research, liturgical and anatomical, persuades us to accept it is based on facts’ Gwen Moffat, Shots
‘Lyrical and full of philosophical questions’ Madeleine Shakespeare, Ramblingmads
