-
Robert Ovies’ first novel, The Rising, was acclaimed by readers as the sort of fast-paced thriller that grabs you from the first page and doesn’t let go until you’ve reached the back cover. His new novel, Barely a Crime, (read the first chapter here) is another spiritual thriller with even… Read more »
-
Read the first chapters of the novel Barely a Crime by Robert Ovies. If you like what you’re reading, visit the novel’s page to learn more or order! PROLOGUE Kieran Lynch was born in a pine bed in his parents’ lower flat in West Belfast, Ireland, on a night that… Read more »
-
Addicted to Escape: A review of Tim Powers’ “Medusa’s Web”
by John Herreid
March 2, 2016 12:23 pm Leave a Comment
Fear is underrated by most people. Fearlessness is what gets lauded. But fear is an essential part of a healthy perspective on life. If we don’t fear a hot stove, we may get burned; if we don’t fear wild animals, we may end up like one of those sentimental wilderness… Read more »
-
Many years ago, I came across a list of suggested disciplines to embrace during Lent. One of the things suggested was to refrain from reading novels during the forty days of Lent. It’s a discipline that I’m happy to say I have never engaged in. In fact, novels and fiction… Read more »
-
Old Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard To get her poor dog a bone; But when she came there The cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog had none. —Mother Goose When we sold our Minnesota home and moved to England, I was working on a revision of a… Read more »
-
“You live in a deranged age—more deranged than usual, because despite great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.” —Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos One of the paradoxes of the Information Age is that as ready access… Read more »
-
The Catholic Novelist As Peddler in Bleak Midwinter
by James Casper
January 27, 2016 1:35 pm Leave a Comment
A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter. —T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi Outside the church after Mass, beyond perfunctory handshakes, breaths… Read more »
-
If you really come down to any large story that interests people or can hold their attention for a considerable time, the story is practically always a human story, it’s practically always about one thing isn’t it: death! The inevitability of death… There’s a quotation from Simone de Beauvoir that… Read more »
-
This is a ‘novels’ blog, and I decided that “reality” TV shows are something ‘novel’ about which something needs to be written. I confess. I am Catholic and I watch reality TV. Sometimes. Maybe more than I should. And admit it, a lot of you do too. I want to… Read more »
-
..in this excellent profile of novelist Fiorella De Maria at the Catholic World Report website: During Lent 1998, a teenage girl, having just left an English convent school, knelt at the grotto of St. Jerome in the Holy Land. She prayed fervently, asking that through his intercession she would one… Read more »