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.

57. Absolute Truths

By Susan Howatch
Rated: ★★★★★

This very busy book is the sixth and concluding book of the Starbridge series. It is narrated by Charles Ashworth, Bishop of the Starbridge. By this time in the series all the characters have become real people to me and all the events have actually happened. I am very involved.

Events almost happen faster than I the reader can absorb them. Lyle, the much loved but somewhat stand-offish wife of Charles dies and when her journal comes to light Charles discovers that she had a much richer inner spiritual life than he had ever imagined. Added to his almost overwhelming grief Charles also has to contend with the insecurity of his oldest son, the rebelliousness of the younger son, a cathedral that is sending out bad vibes, the suspicion that it's Dean, Neville Aysgarth, is playing fast and loose with the cathedral's assets, an apparent ghost who has recently taken up residence in the cathedral, a controversial divorced priest who wants to set up a Healing Center in the diocese, a pushy archdeacon, and another priest who has been collecting pornography.

Jon once again rides to the rescue in spite of now being 88 years old and manages to pick up Neville and set him back on his feet spiritually, and helps he and Charles to come to a meeting of the minds regarding the operation of the cathedral. The controversial priest Lewis Hall methaphorically airs out the cathedral and rids it of the bad vibes, confronts the ghost who turns out the be a former Bishop who is just trying to be helpful and sorts out the priest with the dirty pictures. In the end everything works its self out just like a good novel is supposed to.

56. Mystical Paths

By Susan Howatch
Rated: ★★★★

Set in 1968 this fifth book in the Starbridge series is narrated by Nicholas Darrow, the late in life son of Jon Darrow from Glamorous Powers.

The main characters, Nicholas and his father Jonathan Darrow, both possess rare psychic gifts, and their inability to see situations clearly in relation to one another stems from the mutual belief that the son is a replica of his father.

They are not just alike of course. Nicholas' psychic gifts are drawing him toward a ministry of healing and Jon, who had some bad experiences in the past when he tried to establish a healing ministry does everything he can to discourage Nicholas from going in that direction. Added to that NIcholas is a teenager who is desperately trying on one hand to distance himself from his father and on the other hand terrified to do so because sometimes he feels overwhelmed by his own psychic powers and needs his father to feel safe.

Things threaten to get out of hand but a new character, Lewis Hall a priest who has been called to a healing ministry takes him in hand and helps him to find the confidence to stand alone without his father and also helps Jon realise that he can safely finally turn loose.

Also, Nicholas contemporaries, the so called "popular crowd" who form secondary characters in the book deteriorate rapidly from a privileged and party-loving group into addiction, mental illness, suicide, murder, or desperate, even pathological, promiscuity. The full consequences of the tragedy involving Venetia Flaxton, which is set in 1963 in Scandalous Risks, are sadly clear in this 1968 setting.

The conclusion of this book is the first time that I felt that Howatch got "really weird," a theme she enlarges on in her St. Benet series and this is the reason that I eventually stopped reading them after the first book in that series. I do not do the occult well.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

I loved this movie but I sure did miss a lot of it that went by so fast that I was unable to catch it. Old ears I guess. It's definately on my to buy list and I plan to watch it with the subtitles on when I get it. I figure it might end up being a whole different movie once I figure out what was actually going on.

What I did catch that really surprised me was the direct quotes from our Military Commissions Act of 2006 in the beginning where the British Government was hanging not only men but women and children. I did not find it surprising that Johnny Depp would be responsible for this very subtle but very snarky dig at the government but I was surprised that Disney allowed it.

There was a lot more verbal humor in this movie than in the two previous movies. Or at least it seemed to me that there was. I have heard several criticisms that it was too long but for me the time just flew by. I loved Keira Knightly, she of the bee stung (can you say botoxed?) lips. She swashed and buckled with the best of them in spite of the fact that for part of the fight scene she only had a half of a right eyebrow.

The one criticism I have is that I thought that Calypso was a major disappointment once she became a monster. All that build up and the best she could do is create one maelstrom? I guess they are setting up for movie number four. They better be because they have sure left poor Orlando hanging out there in the wind or maybe I should say in deep water.

But overall, I highly recommend this movie. It had a bunch of laugh out loud moments.

55. Scandalous Risks

By Susan Howatch
Rated: ★★★★½

This is the fourth book in the Starbridge series and is narrated by Venetia Flaxton, a young woman of intellect and means but no direction, and centers around her strange affair in 1963 with 61-year-old Neville Aysgarth, dean of Starbridge Cathedral.

This book had me grinding my teeth in frustration with Neville. Everything Jon did in the previous book to help him get back on a correct spiritual path seems to go down the drain with his obsession with Venetia. Marrying Dido was the worse possible thing he could have done both for himself personally and also for his children. Because he doesn't love her but feels guilty for marrying her he overcompensates by doting on her while suppresses his own needs and desires. This conflict ends up being a recipe for a disaster for not only himself and his family but has disastrous consequences for Venetia as well.

To compound his problems Neville also indulges in high risk behaviours managing the cathedral. Much is made in this book about his alcoholism but personally I thought his addiction to adrenalin and to living on the edge of disaster was a bigger problem.

In the background of all this drama we see the return of Charles and Lyle Ashworth, the main characters in Glittering Images. Charles is now the Bishop of Starbridge and represents the conservative wing of the CoE, a position which puts him into conflict with Neville over the cathedral management.

Meanwhile, the offspring of the older characters are romping though the 1960's putting additional grey in their parents hair and courting disasters of their own.

54. Ultimate Prizes

By Susan Howatch
Rated: ★★★★★

The third book in the Starbridge, Ultimate Prizes is for me, the most moving and profound book in the entire series. It's the one that I think sort of lays out what Susan Howatch was trying to accomplish.

Narrated by Neville Aysgarth, an ambitious archdeacon it is the story of his lifetime quest for the "ultimate prizes." He is by far the most fascinating character of the series for me. Just when I think I have him all nicely figured out he throws me a huge curve ball. I love the way Howatch describes the different facets of his personality as individuals, i.e. Neville 1, Neville 2 and Neville 3.

The time is set at the beginning of WW II Neville's marriage to Grace, the perfect wife and mother, is cracking under the pressure of being worthy of her perfection. After Grace dies, Neville marries socialite Dido Tallent, but when their first child dies at birth, his faith in both God and his own motives is rocked. In crisis, Neville asks his colleague Jon Darrow (narrator of Glamorous Powers ) for spiritual first aid and, guided by a wise abbot friend of Jon's, is forced to an honest appraisal of himself and his ambition--which has its roots in his early life. He struggles back to spiritual health and eventually emerges a wiser man, more honest and loving toward his family and his flock.

Neville and Jon are such opposite ends of the spectrum spiritually that I find their battle's very illuminating. I never realized before that the Episcopal Church had "catholic" and a "protestant" factions and I am very impressed that the CoE allows them both to coexist. Then it makes me wonder why having women and homosexual clergy is such a problem?

53. Glamorous Powers

By Susan Howatch
Rated ★★★★★


This is the second book in the Starbridge series and one of my favorites. I love Jon who is rather aply described in a later book as “an old pirate.” This description fits him to a tee, especially Captain Jack Sparrow has come along and pretty much sold me on pirates.

Jon Darrow, an Anglican priest and abbot with psychic abilities, has a vision that he interprets as God's instruction to leave his religious order, a monastery that has been his home for seventeen years. . "In this witty, wise novel, the question 'Does God exist?' is always understood and, true to life, ambiguously answered,"

51. Glittering Images

by Susan Howatch
Rated: ★★★★½


No reread adventure of mine would be complete with including the six Starbridge novels. (actually seven because I am going to include the first novel in her St. Benet series which I feel should rightly belong in the Starbridge series. ) While I will usually do not read books that have a religious agenda, these books have found a place in my heart and a permanent spot on my keeper shelves.

Charles Ashworth a protegee of the Archbishop of Canterbury is sent to investigate the possibly scandalous conduct of Alex Jardine, a bishop who criticized his superiors position on marriage and divorce. He does not expect however to find himself falling in love. His encounters with the hypnotically enigmatic Jardine and his unusual household forces Charles and the reader on an agonizing exploration of the psyche behind the seemingly flat character of a superficial clergyman.

Some of this story is just a tad melodramatic but I overlooked that because I liked the overall story so much.

50. Secrets in the Heather

By Gwen Kirkwood
Rated:★★★

A new family saga from the well-loved Scottish author. When the woman orphaned Victoria Pringle believes to be her great-grandmother dies, Victoria is offered a job in the kitchens of the Pringle family, tenants of the Laird of Darlonachie. But times are changing, both above and below stairs, and Victoria must face up to new choices, and come to terms with a long-buried secret in her past.

I love family sagas. The problem that I had with this one is that it's about the fifth book in a series and this is the obnly one that my library system has. It's a pretty good story but I was too far behind to really enjoy it.

At Some Disputed Barricade

By Anne Perry
Rated DNF

I returned this book to the library unfinished. I found that I could no longer deal with life in the trenches of WWI. I fully intend to check this book out again and read it but I needed a break. Maybe in July.

49. Angels in the Gloom

By Anne Perry
Rated:★★★★


"Angels in the Gloom is a saga of love, hate, obsession, and murder that features an honorable English family - brothers Joseph and Matthew Reavley and their sisters, Judith and Hannah. In March 1916, Joseph, a chaplain at the front, and Judith, an ambulance driver, are fighting not only the Germans but the bitter cold and the appalling casualties at Ypres. Scarcely less at risk, Matthew, an officer in England's Secret Intelligence Service, fights the war covertly from London. Only Hannah, living with her children in the family home in tranquil Cambridgeshire, seems safe." "Appearances, however, are deceiving. By the time Joseph returns home to Cambridgeshire, rumors of spies and traitors are rampant. And when the savagely brutalized body of a weapons scientist is discovered in a village byway, the fear that haunts the battlefields settles over the town - along with the shadow of the obsessed ideologue who murdered the Reavleys' parents on the eve of the war. Once again, this icy, anonymous powerbroker, the Peacemaker, is plotting to kill." "Perry's kaleidoscopic new novel illuminates an entire world, from the hell of the trenches to the London nightclub where a beautiful Irish spy plies her trade, from the sequestered laboratory where a weapon that can end the war is being perfected to the matchless glory of the English countryside in spring. Steeped in history and radiant with truth, Angels in the Gloom is a masterpiece that warms the heart even as it chills the blood."--BOOK JACKET.

48. Nineteen minutes

By Jodi Picoult
Rated:★★★★

I expected this to be a powerful book but I was still almost floored by it. The subject matter couldn't be more topical but more than that I think it's the randomness of the different school shootings that really disturbs me the most. It was kind of like when I read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and realized that no matter who or where you are this kind of thing could happen at anywhere. Below is the blurb from the book jacket:

"Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens - until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest friendships and families." "Nineteen Minutes asks simple questions that have no easy answers: Can your own child become a mystery to you? What does it mean to be different in our society? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who - if anyone - has the right to judge someone else?"--BOOK JACKET.