"No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is...

Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion. Jessie Sullivan's conventional life has been "molded to the smallest space possible." So when she is called home to cope with her mother's startling and enigmatic act of violence, Jessie finds herself...

"Mulan meets The Song of Achilles in Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun, a bold, queer, and lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty from an amazing new voice in literary fantasy. To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything "I refuse to be nothing ..." In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness...

In the summer of 1144, a strange calm has settled over England. The armies of King Stephen & Empress Maud, the two royal cousins contending for the throne, have temporarily exhausted each other. On the whole, Brother Cadfael considers peace a blessing & agrees to accompany a friend to Wales. When Cadfael is captured by an army of Danish mercenaries, he finds himself in the midst of a brotherly quarrel that could plunge an entire kingdom into deadly...

In this beautiful story of adventure and survival from the New York Times bestselling author of Room, three men vow to leave the world behind them as they set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them. In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks--young Trian and old Cormac--he rows down the river Shannon...

"We shall all, in the end, be led to where we belong. We shall all, in the end, find our way home. In a time of war, a mysterious child appears at the monastery of the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing. Gentle Brother Edik finds the girl, Beatryce, curled in a stall, wracked with fever, coated in dirt and blood, and holding fast to the ear of Answelica the goat. As the monk nurses Beatryce to health, he uncovers her dangerous secret, one that imperils...

In 12th Century Britain, Brother Cadfael searches for his son, Olivier de Bretagne, taken prisoner in a war between the grandchildren of William the Conqueror. In the process he discovers intrigue and murder. By the author of The Holy Thief.

In the 12th century Benedictine monastary of Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael has settled down to a quiet life in charge of the herbarium after an adventurous, and far from monastic, youth. But when his piror determines to acquire the bones of a saint form a remote Welsh village, Cadfael's worldly experience becomes vitally important. It is fortunate indeed that his skills as a herbalist are matched by his prowess as a detective, since the obstacles to...

During the hot summer of 1144, the Earl of Essex succumbs to a fatal arrow, but only after a lingering fever during which his officials do their best to save him from hellfire by restoring various properties he has annexed. And then heavy rains bring threats of floods and the holy relics must be saved. When the waters subside, a robber is revealed and before Brother Cadfael can solve that case a murder is added.

One of the most famous books ever written about a man's search for faith and peace.
The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders—the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, "the four walls of my new freedom," Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after...