Status Updates From Gentian Hill

I don't believe this author is aware of the concept of a bishop

Reading about old English Christmas customs is so fascinating

Look, if they had been friends since childhood or he had been in love with her his whole life, I would mayyyyyyyyyyybe accept this. But you don't meet a random strange woman, find out she's a Carmelite novice, and decide ON THE SPOT that you are going to pressure her into marrying you instead. The hubris. Apart from everything else, the bleedin' HUBRIS

Okay, I KNEW she wasn't Catholic!

(To be clear, she is doing an excellent job portraying Catholic characters in a highly sympathetic way, but there are just a few touches where you can sense the presence of a different perspective. It's very interesting)

Why is this book so white-knuckle obsessed with the idea that desertion is Bad

(I know this was the aftermath of WW2, but come on)

I will forgive your demented moral compass because you're just so good at describing Gregorian chant, darn it!!!

See, this is ACTUALLY how you tell a story with a dispossessed and ruined Abbey in it, instead of just using it as romantic set-dressing

Title drop!!!

Fourteen year old me would have eaten this book UP

(thirty-one year old me is still relishing it quite a bit, for the record)

Say what you will about those mid-twentieth century British authors, but they knew how to write a Description.

First chapter, glorious writing combined with WILDLY incorrect moralizing... let's go girls

“…he did not believe in capricious fortune, but in a carefully woven pattern where every tightly stretched warp thread of pain laid the foundation for a woof thread of joy.” Ch.9