Fiction
by Hilaire Belloc
The Path to Rome is so much more than a travelogue. Legendary writer Hilaire Belloc speaks of his walk from Southern France to Rome, while using it as the basis for telling a history of Europe, an exploration of the English language, and the journey to Christ and His Church.
The Path to Rome is not only the story of Hilaire Belloc, but also the story of us, navigating the divide between history and our own age as we seek Christ. Discover Belloc’s undying love for Europe and for the Church, which will reinvigorate your own love for Western Civilization and Catholicism.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 308 pages, Illustrations
Bound by the Seal
Based on the True Story of a Priest who Sacrifices all to Maintain the Seal of Confession
by Fr Joseph Spillmann, S.J.
It is the year 1888 in the idyllic southern French village of Sainte Victoire. Its pastor, Father Francis Montmoulin, is loved by his faithful parishioners and even grudgingly respected by the local anti-clericals.
Tragedy suddenly strikes, however, when a charitable old parishioner is brutally murdered under the priest’s own roof, and a large sum of money destined to build a hospital for the poor is stolen from her.
All the circumstantial evidence points to the innocent priest as the murderer and he becomes the prime suspect. However, Father Montmoulin knows through the confessional who the real culprit is. He is faced with a decision: either break the seal of confession or face shame, scandal and certain death at the guillotine.
This is an entirely revised and re-typeset version of “A Victim to the Seal of Confession”. The language has been updated to suit a modern readership.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 296 pages
I Am Margaret #7
by Corinna Turner
FAITH. FORGIVENESS. FREEDOM.
Fr. Kyle Verrall has lived his life in the shadow of his famous sister, Margaret-and that's fine by him. But after his kidnapping by Reginald Hill, he must learn to cope not only with his physical injuries, but also with his unwelcome new popularity. Meanwhile, Margaret continues her fight for true democracy. But can she practise what she preaches and forgive her oldest enemy?
This volume contains two novellas, A SAINT IN THE FAMILY and PERSISTENCE, which follow on from the events of THE SIEGE OF REGINALD HILL. It also includes five short stories.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 336 pages
by Fiorella de Maria
When a British emergency room doctor saves the life a woman who apparently attempted suicide, he is accused of committing a crime and stands trial. Not only is Dr. Matthew Kemble's medical practice at risk, but also his liberty. If he is found guilty of trespassing on a woman's right to die, he could go to jail.
The novel Do No Harm exposes the dangers faced by conscientious doctors in Britain. Dr. Kemble's decision to treat a patient in defiance of her Living Will pits him against English Law, public opinion and his own profession. The legal and personal battles he faces raise many questions about the role of the physician in the modern world, contemporary beliefs about autonomy and human rights, and the increasingly bitter clash of values in twenty-first century Britain.
Set in and around London, the story explores the interrelated stories of a physician facing ruin and imprisonment at the height of his career, his old friend and doggedly determined lawyer, Jonathan Kirkpatrick, and Maria, a passionate, dedicated but intensely lonely young campaigner who while working for the defense proves incapable of staying out of trouble herself.
Hardcover, size 9.25" x 6.25", 235 pages
A Novel of the Crucifixion
by Louis de Wohl
This novel of the last days of Christ ranges from the palaces of Rome to the strife-torn hills of Judea - where the conflict of love and betrayal, revenge and redemption, reaches a climax in the drama of the Crucifixion. For this is the full story of the world's most dramatic execution, as it affected on of its least-known participants - Longinus, the man who hurled his spear into Christ on the Cross.
Among his many successful historical novels, Louis de Wohl considered The Spear the magnum opus of his literary career.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 401 pages
by Corinna Turner
IN MARGO'S WORLD, IF YOU DON'T PASS YOUR SORTING AT 18 YOU ARE RECYCLED.
LITERALLY.
Margaret Verrall dreams of marrying the boy she loves and spending her life with him. But she's part of the underground network of Believers - and that carries the death penalty. And there's just one other problem. She's going to fail her Sorting. But a chance to take on the system ups the stakes beyond mere survival. Now she has to break out of the Facility - or face the worst punishment of all. Conscious Dismantlement.
"Great style - very good characters and pace. Definitely a book worth reading, like The Hunger Games." EOIN COLFER, author of Artemis Fowl
"An intelligent, well-written and enjoyable debut from a young writer with a bright future." STEWART ROSS, author of The Soterion Mission "This book invaded my dreams." SR. MARY CATHERINE BLOOM O.P
Age range: 15+
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 308 pages
Belinda
A Tale of Affection in Youth and Age
by Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc, 1870-1853, was born in France of a French Catholic father and an English protestant mother. His mother later converted under the influence of Cardinal Manning, a good friend and mentor of Hilaire. His only sister, Marie Lowndes, was a fairly well-known writer like her brother Hilaire.
Belloc's father died young, leaving his widow in dire financial straits with two young children to support. They moved to England, and they settled in Slindon, West Sussex, where Belloc lived for most of his life. In 1906, he married Elodi Hogan, from Napa California. Their brief but ecstatically happy marriage ended with her death in 1914, after she had borne him five children. He never remarried, and he wore mourning for the rest of his life.
This beautiful and precisely chiseled, almost fairy-taleish narrative, subtitled A Tale of Affection in Youth and Age, must certainly have been a poignant reminder that he himself had, by the inscrutable providence of God, been granted that deep measure of affection in his youth that is so idealistically pictured in Belinda, but denied that affection in old age that is equally well-depicted. This brief novel of human love and affection idealized is a delightful and cheerful reminder that indeed, life can have its moments of beauty, if even only as a foretaste of the delights promised to those blessed with the grace of perseverance unto salvation.
Paperback, size 7.5" x 5", 130 pages
A Dystopian Future as seen by a Catholic Priest
Annotated Version
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
A PRIEST’S PROPHETIC VISION OF SOCIETAL AND MORAL DECLINE
Lord of the World is a riveting apocalyptic novel that foretold the future with frightening accuracy. Written in 1907 by Fr. Robert Hugh Benson, this prophetic book contains a dystopian vision that is perilously close to being realized fully today.
Though released over a century ago, the issues and themes Lord of the World explores are startlingly contemporary. Through his masterful writing, Benson transports readers to a disturbing political environment where religion is abolished, euthanasia is encouraged, and an all-powerful secular government rules with an iron fist. It is a world where humanity has lost its moral compass and individual freedoms are severely restricted.
Lord of the World is astonishing in the accuracy of its predictions, from the erosion of spirituality to the rise of anti-Catholic regimes. The pace of social and moral decline examined in Benson’s work has only accelerated in the decades since it was first published, making this landmark of Catholic literature as relevant today as it was upon publication.
This annotated edition provides readers with concise chapter-by-chapter summaries that include helpful elucidations of the text. By contextualizing Benson’s masterpiece, this edition serves to deepen the reader’s appreciation of the author’s immediate concerns at the dawn of the 20th century while grasping its continuing relevance to the beleaguered early decades of the 21st.
Hardcover, size 9.25" x 6.25", 409 pages
by Fr. Daniel A. Lord, S.J.
A murder mystery written by a Catholic priest in the 1950's.
I felt Karl's knee hit mine in sharp hint. So Schwartz was openly bragging that he had found money. Where? This was a crowd of relatively poor men, labourers, artisans, clerks without resources. Schwartz's bragging could mean only one thing, and involuntarily my hand closed over Karl's knee. Schwartz had the missing jewels! Wasn't it clear? We needn't have joined this fool organization to learn the truth. Schwartz had just admitted it openly from the platform! All this was telegraphed between us in the impact of Karl's knee against mine and my answering hand replying wordlessly that I understood, and that the trail was hot.
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 100 pages
by G. K. Chesterton
Introduction by Dale Ahlquist
This classic novel by the brilliant G. K. Chesterton tells the rollicking tale of Innocent Smith, a man who may be crazy-or possibly the most sane man of all. Arriving at a dreary London boarding house accompanied by a windstorm, Smith is an exuberant, eccentric and sweet-natured man. Smith has a positive effect on the house-he creates his own court, brings a few couples together, and falls in love with a paid companion next door. All seems to be well with the world.
Then the unexpected happens: Smith shoots at one of the tenants, and two doctors arrive to arrest him, claiming that he's a bigamist, an attempted murderer, and a thief. But cynical writer Moon insists that the case be tried there-and they explore Smith's past history, revealing startling truths about what he does. Is he the wickedest man in Britain, or is he "blameless as a buttercup"?
Beautifully written, mixing the ridiculous with the profound, full of hilarious dialogue and lushly detailed writing, Chesterton's main character Innocent Smith somehow manages to restore joy to all the dull and cynical lives around him. In this delightfully strange mystery, Chesterton demonstrates why life is worth living, and that sometimes we need a little madness just to know we are alive.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 200 pages
A Father Gabriel Mystery #5
by Fiorella de Maria
Father Gabriel has finally returned to St Mary's Abbey, but all is not well in the sleepy Wiltshire village of Sutton Westford. Joseph Beaumont, a former village boy turned London property developer, has returned to build a row of houses on the grounds of a disused mine. A local opposition group – led by Joseph's boyhood nemesis – campaigns to stop the development, and Joseph finds himself the target of increasingly menacing threats. Then, workmen make a gruesome discovery on the building site: the skeleton of a child who went missing thirty years before, while the Great War was raging. Fr Gabriel is called in to investigate, but the task seems impossible. How can he uncover a secret that has been carefully hidden for three decades? Is the killer even still alive? Worse, as the tragic details emerge of a lost little girl's final moments, Gabriel is tormented by the memory of his own daughter and the life that was stolen from her many years before.
Missing Presumed Lost explores the themes of childhood innocence, guilt, and the responsibilities faced by society to protect the young. The book also delves deeper into Gabriel's own troubled past and the need to lay it to rest.
Paperback, size 8" x5.25", 270 pages
Saint Dymphna of Ireland
by Susan Peek
An insane king. His fleeing daughter. Estranged brothers, with a scarred past, risking everything to save her from a fate worse than death. Toss in a holy priest and a lovable wolfhound, and get ready for a wild race across Ireland. Will Dymphna escape her deranged father and his sinful desires? For the first time ever, the story of Saint Dymphna is brought to life in this dramatic novel for adults and older teens. With raw adventure, gripping action, and even humor in the midst of dark mental turmoil, Susan Peek's newest novel will introduce you to a saint you will love forever! Teenage girls will see that Dymphna was just like them, a real girl, while young men will thrill at the heart-stopping danger and meet heroes they can easily relate to. If ever a Heavenly friend was needed in these times of widespread depression and emotional instability, this forgotten Irish saint is it!
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 316 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
Tudor England has become a house divided against itself. As King Henry VIII, the self-anointed “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” wreaks destruction and despoilment upon the monasteries and convents of his country, he also unwittingly brings to fulfillment the prophecy in the Gospel of Luke: “Father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father…” (12:53). At the center of The King’s Achievement are Sir James and Lady Torridon, their sons, Ralph and Christopher, and their daughters, Mary and Margaret. With their loyalties divided between God and Caesar, the Torridons follow divergent paths; yet the nature of the national and ecclesial crisis is such that all paths must converge at the juncture of salvation or damnation.
Substantively and stylistically superb, The King’s Achievement—as Francis X. Connolly describes in his Foreword—“does what good historical fiction should do: it renders a complex historical situation justly and it brings characters to life in a story that is interesting for its own sake,” and achieves a dramatic balance of scholarly composure and ardent lyricism.
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 388 pages
A Novel
by Fr. Michael Brisson
Father Christopher Hart, a young New York priest and classic film buff, is unwittingly drafted by the mob to hear the confession of a man slated for execution. This was not one of the duties he expected when he became a first-time pastor. Learning how to balance the books and safely navigate parish politics, yes; but playing a key role in the White Death—a mafia ritual in which a person condemned to death is allowed to confess his sins before he's killed—was not included on the Parish Leadership 101 curriculum. Should he just do his job and collaborate with the mob for the sake of souls or find a way to stop the violence?
Unrelentingly comparing his life to his favorite classic movies, Father Hart wishes he could just play the role of Father O'Malley from Going My Way, but he ends up playing a character more akin to Philip Marlowe from The Big Sleep. This riveting page-turner will entertain, but it will also drive the reader to grapple with important themes such as identity, purpose, justice, sin, and, ultimately, redemption.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 366 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
Queen Mary I is determined to undo the destruction wrought by her father, King Henry VIII: the despoilment of the Roman Catholic Church in England, the divisions sewn amongst the English people, the desertion from Papal authority for supreme independence. Her reign, Mary avers, will see the right order restored. Only then will peace and unity again be found in England. Peace and unity: beautiful ends so often sought by brutal means, by sword and by scheme, by force and by fire—means which are frustratingly unsuccessful even as her marriage with Philip of Spain proves barren and her kingdom remains divided against itself. Instead of triumph, the reign of Tudor Mary yields tragedy: her own devotion and desire to follow the will of God her sole comforts as death draws near Saint James’s Palace.
Anticipating the historiographical reconsiderations of “Bloody Mary”, Robert Hugh Benson’s The Queen’s Tragedy (like its companion works, By What Authority? and The King’s Achievement) makes for both vivid character study and compelling chronicle—essential ingredients for a proper historical novel.
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 322 pages
A Most Dangerous Innocence
by Fiorella de Maria
It is 1940, the time of the Phoney War. Britain stands alone with German invaders waiting across the Channel and an anxious population preparing for the bloody battle ahead. In an isolated girls' boarding school, sixteen-year-old Judy Randall watches the coming of war with a mixture of fascination and fear. She is a misfit in an institution that prizes conformity; a Catholic with Jewish heritage at a time when anti-Semitism is still commonplace. Most inconveniently of all, she is autistic, and her behavior is misunderstood as merely eccentric and insolent.
Bored and frustrated by her inability to help the war effort, Judy becomes obsessed with the idea that her hated headmistress is a Nazi, and she goes to increasingly reckless lengths to prove her theory. In the meantime, the adults of the school busy themselves with planning how best to protect the children in their care if occupying forces overrun the country. For teacher John Peterson, who has seen armed conflict before, his own agonizing history forces him to consider what sacrifices he might have to make if the horrors of the war overtake them all.
A Most Dangerous Innocence offers a glimpse into the early days of the Second World War, seen from a sleepy corner of Britain. It is also a meditation on childhood guilt, innocence, loyalty, and the courage to stand alone.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 214 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
This third of Rober Hugh Benson's "mainstream" novels, The Coward may have been the most shocking to the upper class sensibilities of Benson's day. A young man is faced with challenges and manages to fail at every step. He becomes convinced he is an irredeemable coward - and only then begins to find courage. In a damning indictment of close-minded Edwardian society, a supreme act of courage on the young man's part is mistaken for yet one more craven act.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 312 pages
May Day!
A Father Gabriel Mystery #6
by Fiorella de Maria
Spring has come to the abbey, and the community is busily preparing for the May Day weekend and the arrival of Boy Scouts who will hold their annual camp on the abbey grounds. When a Boy Scout named Antoine is sent home in disgrace, Fr Gabriel accompanies him to his house, which has become the scene of a violent crime. Antoine’s father, Charles, has been found dead, apparently killed during a botched burglary.
Suspecting there was more to the crime than what first meets the eye, Fr Gabriel joins forces with Inspector Applegate to learn about Charles Nicholson, a quiet family man with no obvious enemies. The victim, however, had been married to a fiery French resistance fighter, a union that had caused considerable excitement in the sleepy village.
It doesn’t take long for Gabriel to notice that Brigitte Nicholson’s life – and courageous death in wartime France – has had a dramatic effect upon her surviving family. Gabriel’s quest for the truth leads him into the brutal world of Nazi-occupied France, where resistance fighters like Brigitte were betrayed by their most trusted friends. Could Brigitte’s betrayer and Charles’ killer be one and the same person? And could the shadowy figure menacing Gabriel be the murderer he is trying to hunt down?
This sixth installment of the Father Gabriel series explores the murky world of wartime treason, profiteering, and betrayal. The story also involves the return of some characters from earlier in the series.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 280 pages
The Vanishing Woman
A Father Gabriel Mystery #3
by Fiorella de Maria
In this next book in the Father Gabriel mystery series, the priest detective tries to solve the riddle behind the disappearance of the most hated woman in town.
Enid Jennings, a retired headmistress and an embittered war widow, has a talent for causing conflict and distress wherever she goes. When Enid's daughter sees her vanish into thin air, she is widely assumed to have been mistaken or to have lost her mind – or worse, to have committed an act of foul play.
Enter Father Gabriel. Working on the principle that some stories are too strange to have been made up, the priest sets out to discover the whereabouts of the missing woman. With help from the town's physician, and hostility from the irascible Inspector Applegate, Father Gabriel delves into Enid Jennings' past, and he digs up the recent past of the whole village during the days of the Phony War, when invaders lay in wait across the Channel and crimes were just a little easier to hide.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 246 pages
Death of a Scholar
A Father Gabriel Mystery #2
by Fiorella De Maria
Father Gabriel spends a few days of relaxation at his old Cambridge College, the guest of friend Arthur Kingsley from his student days. Kingsley is now a respected scientist and a Fellow of St Stephen's College, but after an enjoyable evening dining at High Table, Gabriel receives the shattering news that Daphne Silverton, Kingsley's brilliant young protégée, has been found dead in her laboratory after what appears to have been a tragic accident. Daphne was universally loved, but Gabriel's instincts tell him that her death was a little too perfectly staged to have been an accident.
After an emotional reunion with the parents of his late wife, Gabriel seeks the truth about Daphne's demise. His investigations lead him to the Peace Union and its Ban the Bomb campaign, another member of Daphne's laboratory is found dead. Gabriel struggles to lay aside his personal loyalties and confront the possibility that there are dark secrets lurking behind both deaths.
This fourth book in the popular Father Gabriel series examines the moral minefield of the complicity of scientists in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. It also reveals more about Gabriel's past.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 262 pages