Fiction
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
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 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
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 Flying Inn
by G.K. Chesterton
The beloved G.K. Chesterton presents a well-crafted and joyous work of political fantasy about a small group of rebels who rail against the government’s attempt to impose prohibition in England.
Humphrey Pump, a pub owner, accompanied by Captain Patrick Dalroy, a flamboyant giant with a tendency to burst into song, take to the road in a donkey cart with a cask of good rum, a large block of cheese, and the signpost from his pub, The Flying Inn. The two men bring good cheer to an increasingly restless populace as they attempt to evade the law. In a journey that becomes a rollicking madcap adventure, the two travel round England, encountering revolution, romance, and a cast of memorable characters.
Paperback, 305 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
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
by Msg. Robert Hugh Benson
Who was young Sir Neville Fanning? Why did he call himself a Catholic, and at the same time, lament that he wasn't a very good one? He was convinced that there was something deeper than conventional religion. Denying the cross again and again, he couldn't bear to suffer - even though at every turn Our Lord called him to Himself. He simply could not see the point in submitting to the Divine Will. His "initiation" is a beautiful story of how the surrender was asked - and then won in the end!
Hardcover, size 8.25" x 5.75", 447 pages
Wanderings Over the World
Three Works in One
by G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton needs no introduction. A master of the literary craft, he wrote over eighty books, hundreds of poems and short stories, and thousands of essays. Wanderings over the World collects three early works — The Napoleon of Notting Hill; The Man Who Was Thursday; and The Ballad of the White Horse — that capture his brilliant vision of God, man, and the cosmos, and his power to bring that vision to life with the written word.
The Napoleon of Notting Hill promises a "banquet of humour" when Auberon Quin takes the throne of England and re-establishes the provincial pomp and status of the boroughs of London. But the joke is undone when the guileless Adam Wayne declaires war rather than cede Notting Hill to the armies of industrial expansion.
The Man Who Was Thursday is a political thriller, detective story, and metaphysical treatise, all tied into one. Gabriel Syme's infiltration of an anarchist organisation sets off a series of bewildering events that bring hunter and hunted together in a terrifying conslusion.
The Ballad of the White Horse recounts King Alfred the Great's defeat of the Danish army at the Battle of Ethandum. A poetic tapestry of theology, allegory, and history, The Ballad endures as one of the greatest English epic poems of all time.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 360 pages
by Eloisle Lownsbery
Jean D'Orbais was born under the shadow of Reims Cathedral. From his earliest childhood he sees it growing in beauty through the efforts of the master craftsmen who are at work on it. When he is ten years old, he is apprenticed to a goldsmith, and begins his education in the arts. The story of his career, his escapades, his ambitions, and his final success, is enthralling. But it is not Jean alone who interests us. Through his eyes the child sees the bustling town of Reims in the fourteenth century, with its crafts and guilds, its merchants and its beggars, its nobles and its soldiers. He hears too of the Maid of Orleans, and her fight for France.
Miss Lownsbery combines historic truth and accuracy with an interesting and living story. No textbook would give a child so vivid a picture as this does, and few other stories will so completely capture their imagination.
Hardcover, size 8.25" x 5.75",
by Howard Pyle
Written and illustrated in 1903, at the height of children’s literature, these books have inspired generations to greatness of thought and the acquisition of true virtue. The first book in this four volume series for children focuses on the tale of the future King Arthur and how he came to win his famous sword and to create his round table.
Give your children a vision of a world in which virtue and beauty matters and these truths will stay with them for their entire lives!
Paperback, size 10" x 7", 313 pages
Part VI
by Fr Owen Francis Dudley
In the fictional novel Fr Dudley provides us with a character study of Gordon Tremayne.
Fr. Dudley writes in the notes of this book “we are apt, rather smugly I think, to place certain characters beyond redemption. My choice of Gordon Tremayne has been deliberate, for the reason that humanly he seemed unredeemable. In the event he proved otherwise - owing to the monk acting on the principle of the potentially reclaimable deep down. The Gordon Tremaynes of this world are not uncommon, whose cruelties cry to heaven for vengeance, and yet remain untouched by law. Beyond human reach they may be, but not beyond reach of the Divine.”
Hardcover, size 7.75" x 5.25", 333 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
Come Rack, Come Rope is one of Robert Hugh Benson’s best-known novels. Based on true events and individuals in the time of the Elizabethan persecution of Catholics in England, it centers on Robin and Marjorie, who give up their love for another and hope of marriage in order to minister to their persecuted neighbours.
Masterfully weaving the historical source material with his own creative additions, Benson presents an unflinchingly truthful portrayal of the terror of those times along with an achingly beautiful depiction of true faith.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 330 pages
By Rev. Henry S. Spalding SJ
After spending four years boarding with the Blakestone family during his medical studies, Dr. Murt is thrilled to finally return the favour by inviting young Walter to come and stay with him in Nebraska for a few months. Walter learns to hunt ducks and geese, trap muskrats, and most of all, he gains a new appreciation for the beauty of nature and its ways. But even in this idyllic setting, something is not quite right. What plagues the Dobbs family, and can Dr. Murt help dispel this shadow with Walter’s help?
Suggested Age Range:9-12
Suggested Age Range:13-15
Paperback, 5.5" x 8.5", 174 pages
by G.K. Chesterton
When two men decide to fight for their respective beliefs, they discover to their astonishment that an unbelieving world won’t let them, and they find themselves partners and fugitives from the law in this steampunk satire.
Penned by G.K. Chesterton in 1909, this whimsical and biting novel eerily foreshadows a world in which “tolerance” is the only god and all those who believe ideas are worth dying for are forced to stand together to defend freedom of speech and belief.
Paperback, 272 pages
Part III
by Fr Owen Francis Dudley
Although it is a stand-alone work, it has four of the characters from The Shadow on the Earth. Fr. Dudley endeavours to meet the modern attack upon man and his moral nature launched by those who would degrade him to the level of an animal. Julian Verrers in this tale is neither a literary affectation nor an exaggeration. He is a spokesman delivering faithfully the ideas of certain materialistic scientists, philosophers and leaders of thought.
Temptations of materialism were never stronger than they are today, yet here they are embodied in a novel reprinted from the 1945 edition!
Hardcover, size 7.75" x 5.25", 314 pages
by Br. Charles Madden OFM, Conv.
56 years of marriage and 11 children. The Maddens of Baltimore will surprise you, comfort you, make you laugh until you cry, and make you cry until you laugh again! From games of “pitch” to petty thievery, from over-zealous confessions to exacerbating obedience, there is truly never a dull moment!
But these true stories about a real family, as told by the youngest brother, are much more than just a collection of humor. Together, they weave a tapestry about family life—the way it should be lived and enjoyed. The virtues and the vices, the laughter and the frustration, the happiness and the mourning, the prosperity and the poverty: the family is the first school of love.
Paperback, size 8.25" x 5.25", 111 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
Paperback, size 9.5" x 7.5", 100 pages