A Note of Grace Author:Betty Singleton Betty Singleton, an English author, wrote after WWII and won a Somerset Literary Award. This is her first novel. — "A rare story you will believe in, because you want to believe that it could happen in any town and that even an ordinary man is capable of making a heroic decision. The drama of its situation will hold you till the outcome, yet th... more »ere are more moments of laugh-aloud humor than you have a right to expect in any one book. It is a rare story also that leaves with you, after a thoroughly delightful reading experience, the happy confirmation that decency exists in the strangest places and that the forces shaping men's motives are unpredictable and often good.
No one could have been a more reluctant candidate for glory than Mr. Gedge, town builder by profession, trumpet player in the local band by avocation, and a man who thought of his family first by choice. With the rest of the small Protestant community, he looked upon the nunnery at the edge of town and its group of "black beetles" with disdain and some suspicion. When the chapel at the convent burned to the ground, no one fought more fiercely than he to ignore the "silly ladies" on the hill as they set about to rebuild the chapel themselves.
But Mr. Gedge had not reckoned on the fiery and imperious Sister Ignatius, nicknamed Sister Firebrand, and the unforgettable Mother Superior, leveler of levelers. Nature, curiosity, and an alien force he doesn't quite understand impel him to return to the scene of the ruined chapel time after time. protesting, yet fascinated to a degree he will not admit, he soon finds his fate strangely linked with a widely opposed way of life.
As the story unfolds, you will see dramatically the effect of this challenge on 2 minds of very different caliber. For Mr. Gedge it is a conflict of loyalties - the undoubted worthiness of the cause, against the claims of the wife & daughter he adores. His wife's affection, his carefully built position in the village, & the romance-of-a-lifetime for his daughter are at stake. For Sister Ignatius it is the problem of reconciling the Christian principles of charity and forbearance with her naturally ruthless personality. The convent, a tight-knit, isolated community - where emotions, undiluted by outside influence, are more intense - meets with the secular world in a contest that is unique in fiction.
Actually, the theme of this novel is tolerance, and respect for dedication & work. But you will have so much fun reading the story that you may not realize this till some hours after you have finished it."« less