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A beautiful and haunting story of forbidden love, Consolations portrays a woman’s lifelong struggle to reconcile her all-too-human feelings with her quest for the highest spiritual life. It is 1951 and young Fiona Ingram is full of the fervor of a new convert. Following in the footsteps of her inspiration, Thomas Merton, she abandons a promising academic career and enters Epiphany Monastery, ablaze with the certainty that a life dedicated to seeking God alone is the great adventure—and that it is meant for her. What she finds there is not what she expects: Reverend Nathan Woods, a Jesuit and professor of theology who comes to give the annual retreat. When their forbidden affair ends abruptly, Fiona, now Sister Bridget, suffers a split in her soul. Under the guidance of the compassionate abbess, she tries to “reclaim her heart” and her lost fervor. She conforms outwardly as she rises in positions of authority and responsibility in the order, yet she continues to struggle to understand and resolve her relationship with Nathan—all the while carrying on a secret correspondence with him, until she is forced—in a final encounter and spiritual crisis—to dive deep into the still point of her soul and discover the truth.

Consolations: A Novel