Böcker av Penelope Wilcock

Young Brother Cyril is devastated. He's right at the start of his monastic life. Everything looked so promising, but now it's all been ruined by one glib, unthinking remark. He will be a laughing stock forever. What can he do to restore his self-esteem? Then he has his glorious idea. He decides to write a book about the monks of his community, asking each about the purpose and direction of their lives. Threading through Brother Cyril's conversations with the brothers of St Alcuins Abbey, however, are some of the stories that can never be written - stories of the heart, and of private and personal struggle - like Brother Felix wrestling with scrupulosity and shame, or Father Francis deciding to lay down what meant so much to him. On the way, Brother Cyril learns more than he expected. What begins as an attempt to prove his own worth becomes, in the end, a book of gratitude. Brother Cyril's Book is the second volume in the second series of The Hawk and the Dove novels. It follows on from This Brother of Yours. The stories follow a sequence, but each can be read individually.

William de Bulmer is, once again, at the outer limits of his strength. Back among the monks of St Alcuins Abbey, frail and damaged, he appreciates their understated friendship. But even men of religion, schooled to obedience, have their limits, and William can be both sharp and dangerous. Invited to serve in the infirmary, how will this fastidious, prickly man cope with the old, sick and incontinent? Can Brother Michael, the infirmarian, find the insights to reach his awkward new colleague? Then there is Abbot John, both William's friend and his superior, oppressed by paperwork and weighed down by the cares of office. Where will he find the time, let alone patience, to offer counsel and warmth to this least comfortable of men? This is a novel about healing, in every sense: what happens after the prodigal son comes home, in the parable's untold second chapter, when everyone shuffles up to make room - and, to his delight, the other son gets a break. This Brother of Yours is the first volume in the second series of The Hawk and the Dove novels. Chronologically it follows on from A Day and a Life.