Brother Cyril's Book (Volume 2 of The Hawk & the Dove second series)

 Friends, here is the second of the two books I wrote last summer, now available to buy on Amazon (here in the UK and here in the US, or see the Amazon store for your own region).

Like This Brother of Yours, this new book follows the path of what I'm calling gentle fiction. These last few years have been, for so many of us, a harrowing time — overshadowed by illness, fear and bereavement. "Dread" might not be too strong a term for the taste of it in our mouths, and many of us are left struggling with damaged health, working through trauma, and daunted by the path ahead. What we absolutely do not need in these times is gritty fiction full of tension and  threat. 

In addition, some of us have retreated online to the extent that how we relate with text has changed somewhat — following the thread is harder, lengthy texts feel like a steeper climb than once they did.

Then of course there are some for whom wrestling the story out of written texts was always a challenge; illness or neurological specifics made it hard to do.

For all these reasons, Brother Cyril's Book is written in short chapters subdivided into sections, following unfolding themes but not plot-driven. So if it suits you to read a small bit at a time, to pick it up and travel a little way along with it then put it down, it's easy to do that and come back to it later. And while I hope there is enough in the story to engage your interest, there is neither tension nor threat.

It's not yet clear to me how successful this approach will be, but I have always believed in writing the book I'd like to read, and that's what I've done.

Thank you for reading my work. Thank you for the kindness and generosity you have shown me in taking the trouble to get in touch and let me know you have enjoyed the stories and been helped by them. I cannot tell you how much it means to me.

Because the consecrated life is the inspiration for the Hawk & Dove stories, I have chosen to send half of any proceeds from my writing to the Carthusian house in West Sussex; the other half will pay for the publication of Book 3 when I've finished writing it.

Waving to you, my friends. Than you for being there. Blessed be.