Books with author Rumer Godden

'The motto was Pax but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort.'Bruised by tragedy, Philippa Talbot leaves behind a successful career with the civil service for a new calling: to join an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns. In this small community of fewer than one hundred women, she soon discovers all the human frailties: jealousy, love, despair. But each crisis of heart and conscience is guided by the compassion and intelligence of the Abbess and by the Sisters' shared bond of faith and ritual. Away from the world, and yet at one with it, Philippa must learn to forgive and forget her past . . .

Following World War II, a British widow joins a Benedictine monastery in this poignant New York Times bestseller from the author of Black Narcissus. For most of her adult life, Philippa Talbot has been a successful British professional. Now in her forties, the World War II–widow has made a startling decision: She’s giving up her civil service career and elite social standing to join a convent as a postulant Roman Catholic nun. In Sussex in the south of England, Philippa begins her new life inside Brede Abbey, a venerable, 130-year-old Benedictine monastery. Taking her place among a diverse group of extraordinary women, young and old, she is welcomed into the surprisingly rich and complex world of the devout, whom faith, fate, and circumstance have led there. From their personal stories, both uplifting and heartbreaking, Philippa draws great strength in the weeks, months, and years that follow, as the confidence, conflicts, and poignant humanity of her fellow sisters serve to validate her love and sacred purpose. But a time of great upheaval in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church approaches as the winds of change blow at gale force. And for the financially troubled Brede and the acolytes within, it will take no less than a miracle to weather the storm. Author Rumer Godden spent three years living in close proximity to Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire communing with the Benedictine nuns in preparation for the writing of this beloved bestseller. The result is an honest and unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice, and devotion, a major literary achievement from the acclaimed author of Black Narcissus and The River.This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.

From a New York Times–bestselling author: A novel of a woman’s journey from prostitute to brothel madam to murderess to nun in post–World War II France. A sense of adventure and an eagerness to savor life to the fullest impel young, orphaned Elizabeth Fanshawe to escape her cold, unloving home and enlist in the British Army as a driver in 1944. Dispatched to Paris at the close of the Allies’ war against the hated Nazis, she soon finds herself swept up in the intoxicating celebratory glee of the newly liberated French. But after she meets the charming, seductive Patrice Ambard, Elizabeth’s life takes a sharp turn down a very dark road. Her love for the dashing, hypnotic Frenchman draws Elizabeth, now called Lise, into Patrice’s world of crime and high-class prostitution, where she is broken, hardened, and then transformed into the whore-turned-notorious-madam known as La Balafrée, or the Scarred One. Still, her great fall will not be complete until circumstances drive her to commit a shocking murder—and imprisonment ultimately sets her free. A haunting tale of disgrace, degradation, and glorious redemption told in flashbacks from the convent of Belle Source, where Soeur Marie Lise of the Sisters of Bethany remembers her years of sin and her eventual salvation, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy is moving and powerful fiction from one of the most admired British novelists of the twentieth century. Rumer Godden, author of Black Narcissus and In This House of Brede, has crafted a truly transformative tale about faith, forgiveness, and the mercy of a loving God.This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.

An emergency meeting of the Mortimer Square Garden Committee has been convened to discuss a most alarming matter: Someone has been digging in the garden and making off with buckets of dirt. Miss Angela Chesney is sure that a gang of boys from run-down Catford Street is to blame. But Angela’s sister, Olivia, isn’t so sure. Olivia has always wondered why the neighborhood children—the “sparrows” she sometimes watches from the window of her house—are kept out of the private garden. Don’t they have a right to enjoy the place, too? But neither Angela nor Olivia has any idea what sent the neighborhood waif Lovejoy Mason and her few friends in search of good, rich earth. Still less do they imagine where their investigation of the incident will lead them—to a struggling restaurant, a bombed-out church, and at the heart of it all, a hidden garden.

A sixteen-year-old girl captures the dangerous attention of an older man in this New York Times–bestselling novel by the author of Black Narcissus. Soon after the end of the terrible Great War, Mrs. Grey brings her five young children to the French countryside for the summer in hopes of instilling in them a sense of history and humility. But when she is struck down by a sudden illness and hospitalized, the siblings are left to fend for themselves at the lovely, bullet-scarred hotel Les Oeillets, under the suspicious, watchful eyes of its owner, Mademoiselle Zizi. The young ones find a willing guide, companion, and protector in charming Englishman Eliot, a longtime resident at Les Oeillets and Mlle. Zizi’s apparent paramour. But as these warm days of freedom, discovery, and adolescent adventure unfold, Eliot’s interest becomes more and more focused on the eldest of the Grey children, sixteen-year-old daughter Joss. The older man’s obsession with the innocent, alluring, heartbreakingly beautiful woman-child soon threatens to overstep all bounds of propriety. And as Eliot’s fascination increases, so does the jealousy of his disrespected lover, adding fuel to a dangerously smoldering fire that could erupt into unexpected violence at any moment. Told from the point of view of Cecil, Joss’s sharp-eyed younger sister, The Greengage Summer is a beautiful, poignant, darkly tinged coming-of-age story rich in the sights, smells, and sounds of France’s breathtaking Champagne country. It remains one of the crowning literary achievements of Rumer Godden, acclaimed author of beloved classics Black Narcissus, The River, and In This House of Brede.This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.

On and off, all that hot French August, we made ourselves ill from eating the greengages... The faded elegance of Les Oeillets, with its bullet-scarred staircase and serene garden bounded by high walls; Eliot, the charming Englishman who became the children's guardian while their mother lay ill in hospital; sophisticated Mademoiselle Zizi, hotel patronne, and Eliot's devoted lover; 16 year old Joss, the oldest Grey girl, suddenly, achingly beautiful. And the Marne river flowing silent and slow beyond them all... They would merge together in a gold-green summer of discovery, until the fruit rotted on the trees and cold seeped into their bones... The Greengage Summer is Rumer Godden's tense, evocative portrait of love and deceit in the Champagne country of the Marne-which became a memorable film starring Kenneth More and Susannah York. In the preface, Rumer Godden explains how it came to be written.

With a foreword by JACQUELINE WILSON'A masterpiece of construction and utterly realistically convincing...Rumer Godden's writing is admired for many qualities...but I think her greatest strength is her accurate, unsentimental portrayal of children. Lovejoy, Tip and Sparkey were so real to me that they have stayed alive in my head for more than fifty years' Jacqueline Wilson A captivating classic novel of a poor girl striving to create beauty among the bombsites of post-war London.Someone has been digging up the private garden in the Square. Miss Angela Chesney of the Garden Committee is sure that a gang of local boys is to blame, but her sister, Olivia, isn't so sure. She wonders why the neighbourhood children - 'sparrows', she calls them - have to be locked out: don't they have a right to enjoy the garden too?Nobody has any idea what sends Lovejoy Mason and her few friends in search of 'good garden earth'. Still less do they imagine where their investigation will lead them - to a struggling restaurant, a bombed-out church, and, at the heart of it all, a hidden garden.

Facing harsh adult realities, a young English girl in India must leave childhood behind, in this masterful tale from a New York Times–bestselling author. The Ganges River runs through young Harriet’s world. The eleven-year-old daughter of the British owner of a successful jute concern, she loves her life in Bengal, India, on the river’s edge, so far removed from the English boarding school she attended before the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. Often left alone by an overworked father and preoccupied mother, Harriet is enchanted by the local festivals, colors, and vibrant life surrounding her. Now, as she stands on the brink of adulthood—too old to play childish games with her reckless little brother, Bogey, yet too young to be touched by such grown-up concerns as the faraway Second World War—a stranger’s unexpected arrival will rock her world. When Captain John, a handsome soldier returning wounded from the battlefield, becomes her family’s new neighbor, Harriet is instantly entranced, beset by a rush of unfamiliar emotions: longing, jealousy, infatuation. But the inevitable change inherent in growing older may be too heavy a burden for a young girl to bear when it carries with it disappointment and heartbreaking loss. Inspired by the author’s personal experiences as a child raised in India—and the basis for the acclaimed classic motion picture of the same name from French film director Jean Renoir—Rumer Godden’s The River is a lovely, moving portrayal of childhood’s end. Evocative, heartfelt, and bittersweet, it is a coming-of-age story without equal from a major twentieth-century novelist. This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.

Una and her younger sister Hal have been abruptly summoned to live in New Delhi by their diplomat father Sir Edward Gwithiam. From the first meeting with their new tutor and companion, the beautiful Eurasian Alix Lamont, Una senses a hidden motive to their presence. But through the pain of the months to come, the poetry and logic of India do not leave Una untouched. And it begins with the feather, a promise of something genuine and precious . . . In The Peacock Spring Rumer Godden evokes the magic of an India she knows so well – and all the bitter sweetness of loyalty and love. And in the preface she explains how this perennially popular novel came to be written.

An emergency meeting of the Mortimer Square Garden Committee has been convened to discuss a most alarming matter: Someone has been digging in the garden and making off with buckets of dirt. Miss Angela Chesney is sure that a gang of boys from run-down Catford Street is to blame. But Angela’s sister, Olivia, isn’t so sure. Olivia has always wondered why the neighborhood children—the “sparrows” she sometimes watches from the window of her house—are kept out of the private garden. Don’t they have a right to enjoy the place, too? But neither Angela nor Olivia has any idea what sent the neighborhood waif Lovejoy Mason and her few friends in search of good, rich earth. Still less do they imagine where their investigation of the incident will lead them—to a struggling restaurant, a bombed-out church, and at the heart of it all, a hidden garden.