You’d think a novel set in a cloistered convent populated by nuns following vows of silence would a sleeper. Guess again. Anna Quinn’s Angeline blasts that notion out of the water.
Teenaged Meg is the only survivor of an automobile accident that kills her entire family. Stricken with guilt, she joins a cloistered convent to pray for the suffering of others—and hopefully obliterate her self. She takes the name Sister Angeline and spends her days in silence and prayer. The Archdiocese of Chicago closes the convent due to lack of funds. Angeline is thrust into a new life when she’s assigned to a radical convent in the Pacific Northwest run by feminists. They break every rule Angeline has spent years internalizing, and she struggles to adapt. When her new home is threatened, she musters the strength to fight back, to relinquish her fear and grief, to open herself to new places, new people, new freedoms.
I like Anna Quinn’s writing. Her prose is near-poetic as she explores how our past lives affect our current states, how we reform, recuperate, and grow. Angeline is poignant but not teary and combines the mystical with millennia-old beliefs and twenty-first century front page news. Angeline’s progression through grief to a strong, well-rounded woman is emotionally exhilarating. Angeline is a truly lovely novel that develops into an exciting thriller.
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Angeline (Blackstone Publishing, February 7, 2023) is available through:
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