Lured by a mysterious note, recently retired Father Tim heads for his boyhood home of Holly Springs, Mississippi. But as memories flood his mind, he soon encounters a life-altering truth and receives a gift that could cost him everything.

In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but things improve when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby island community founded by former slaves that the town fathers--and Turner's--want to change into a tourist spot.

In the puritanical Boston of the 17th Century, a woman gives birth after committing adultery. That woman, Hester Prynne, choses to create a new life for herself in the face of adversity rather than succumb to what is expected of her. She will not name the father. Her decision opens up the tension between religious life and the true grace of God, and between personal guilt, religious sin and legal guilt.

The novel is prefaced by a "real" account

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One of the few women to lead a large church of any denomination, Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell is a respected writer and sought-after speaker known for her progressive social vision; beneath the surface, she is lonely and yearns for change. This open, affectionate documentary follows her over two years as she considers leaving the ministry and her only social network as she questions her past, her relationship with God, and her ability to love....

"In a small New England town over half a century ago, a boy is playing with his new toy soldiers in the dirt in front of his house when a shadow falls over him. He looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Jamie learns later, who with his beautiful wife, will transform the church and the town. The men and boys are a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls, with the Reverend Jacobs--including Jamie's sisters and mother. Then tragedy...

"In the vast expanse of late-Victorian Britain, two boys come to life: George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, in shabby genteel Edinburgh, both of them feeling at once near to and impossibly distant from the beating heart of Empire. One falls prey to a series of pranks en route to a legal vocation, while the other studies medicine before discovering a different calling entirely, and it is years before their destinies are entwined in a mesmerizing...

"#1 New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon returns with the fourteenth novel in the beloved Mitford series, featuring three generations of Kavanaghs. After twelve years of wrestling with the conflicts of retirement, Father Tim Kavanagh realizes he doesn't need a steady job to prove himself. Then he's given one--but what, exactly, does it prove? Meanwhile, newly married Dooley and Lace face a crisis that empties their bank account and turns their...

The 32-year-old clergyman August returns home from years of missionary work abroad because of the death of his sister Christina, who, after going from greatness to the gutter as the famous porno star "The Princess" - has finally died of drug abuse. She has left her five-year-old daughter Mia with Karen, a prostitute. August pays them a visit to bring Mia home with him and become her guardian. Burdened by sorrow and guilt, he decides to avenge Christina's...