Glittering Images
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- € 2,99
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The author’s most famous and well-loved work, the Starbridge series, six self-contained yet interconnected novels that explore the history of the Church of England through the 20th century.
Beneath the smooth surface of an Episcopal palace lurks the salacious breath of scandal. Charles Ashworth is sent to untangle the web of self-delusion and corruption only to become embroiled in a strange ménage à trois that threatens to expose the secrets of his own past…
In Glittering Images tension and drama combine in a compelling novel of people in high places, of desperate longings and the failure to resist them, of lies and evasions, of tarnished realities behind brilliant glittering images.
Reviews
'Susan Howatch may well be the Anthony Trollope of the 20th century. Howatch is more than just a novelist of ideas… She is a skilled storyteller who makes the reader wonder, and care about her people.' ANDREW GREELEY, Washington Post
'Rich in human interest, sex, scandal, moral crises and a good deal of humour, it is a book to keep you hooked throughout' Sunday Times
'Howatch writes thrillers of the heart and mind … everything in a Howatch novel cuts close to the bone and is of vital concern' New Woman
'Susan Howatch… is writing for anyone who can recognise that mysterious gift of the true storyteller.' Daily Telegraph
'One of the most original novelists writing today' Cosmopolitan
'Howatch's outstanding gifts as storyteller are combined here with a new seriousness of theme; the result is a superior novel.' Publishers Weekly
'One of the most original novelists writing today' Cosmopolitan
About the author
Susan Howatch was born in Surrey in England. After taking a degree in law at King's College, London, she emigrated to America where she married, had a daughter, and embarked on her career as a writer. In 1976 she separated from her husband, left America and lived in the Republic of Ireland for four years before returning to England. While living in a flat overlooking Salisbury Cathedral and "trying to hold my divided self together", she found herself inspired by the beauty of the cathedral and became a convert. She wondered if she should continue producing romantic novels. Instead, she wrote the series of six Starbridge novels about the Church of England in the 20th century, all of which reflect her own spiritual crises.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Howatch's outstanding gifts as a storyteller (Wheel of Fortune) are combined here with a new seriousness of theme; the result is a superior novel with bestselling potential. The "glittering images'' of the title are those we present with pride to the world; in this case, the cherished images of charismatic, successful churchmen, elegant in their clerical robes, whose congregations are moved by their sermons. These are not the TV evangelists of the '80s, however, but clergymen of the 1930s, whose King has had to choose between his throne and marriage with a divorcee. A controversial speech on divorce reform in the House of Lords by the outspoken Bishop of Starbridge (a character based on Herbert Henson, Bishop of Hereford) provokes the Archbishop of Canterbury to dispatch his protege, Charles Ashworth, Doctor of Divinity, to look for any skeletons in the Bishop's closetor in his bedthat the gutter press could use to smear the Bishop and, by extension, the Church. Ashworth, a debonair widower, is immediately attracted to Lyle Christie, paid companion to Carrie Jardine, the Bishop's wife. Lyle first responds to, then flees from, Ashworth's admittedly forward embraces. When he discovers the reasons for her behavior he is hurled into a moral and spiritual crisis. There's no doubt that sex and religion can make exciting bedfellows; add mysteries within mysteries, scenes of charismatic spiritual healing and a deft creation of a middle-class milieu that disappeared with WW II, and you have an engrossing novel that challenges the reader's sense of the fine points of morality. Howatch succeeds in making the subtle and complex theological points of a spiritual transformation both credible and exciting in a narrative whose dramatic tension never abates. BOMC alternate.
