Friday, June 8, 2007

58. The Wonder Worker


By Susan Howatch
Rated: ★★★★½

This is the first book in the St. Benet's series but I think of it as the seventh book of the Starbridge series because it ties up a lot of loose ends for me.

The story
is set instead in St. Benet's-by-the-Wall, a small church and healing center in London's inner city. It would seem that Nicholas has finally found a way to use his psychic talents in a way that doesn't compromise his religious calling.

A lot of the Starbridge characters come wandering through the story, including Lewis Hall who is Nick's associate and mentor at St. Benet's. The mystery of Rosalind, Nicks wife is finally answered for me. I never understood the reasons that they married and my questions were pretty much answered for me as the marriage begings to fall apart in this book.

Venetia seems to finally be getting her act together. She is a character I worried a lot about in earlier books. The characters from these books have become very real to me so I was glad to get some closure on some of them.

At the very end of the book Howatch starts to get very weird and that was the point where I lost interest in them. Fortunately she goes off on her paranormal tangent with mostly new characters I hadn't bonded with.