350:) at her kitchen table while looking after her baby, but this was the first time I had experienced the phenomenon in real life. Susan Howatch had written her massive novel with one hand on the cradle and the other doing the typing, but, like most authors who succeed, she had never doubted that her book would be a bestseller." Korda asserted that, while reading the drafts, he noticed similarities to the Plantagenets and asked Howatch if that was the case. She replied that Shakespeare had borrowed most of his plots from other sources, and asked Korda if he thought anyone would notice.
301:, Bishop of Llandaff (1958–1970), often appear in her books as chapter headings. She experienced a spiritual epiphany, and concluded that she should continue to write novels, but to "set forth my discoveries in the light of faith, no matter how feeble and inadequate my beginner's faith was." This personal turning point culminated in Howatch's most successful and popular works, the Starbridge series.
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narrates the story of a City lawyer, Carter Graham, who "has it all". Her outwardly successful life, complete with highly compensated career and suitable marriage, undergoes profound changes after harrowing events smacking of the occult begin to occur, which reveal that things are not what they seem.
515:
follows the story of
Jonathan Darrow himself as he leaves the Fordite order at age sixty following a powerful vision. He then must deal with the problems of his adult children, address the question of a new intimate relationship, and search for a new ministry. His particular crisis surrounds the use
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and back to
Starbridge, where he becomes dean of the cathedral and Ashworth becomes a bishop. It is narrated by Venetia Flaxton, a young aristocrat who risks great scandal by beginning a relationship with the married Aysgarth, her father's best friend. The relationships, and Aysgarth's family,
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takes place during World War II. It is narrated by
Neville Aysgarth, a young and ambitious Archdeacon of Starbridge from a lower-middle-class background in the north of England. After being widowed and marrying again, he too undergoes something of a breakdown but is rescued by Jonathan Darrow.
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The St Benet's trilogy takes place in the London of the 1980s and 1990s. Again, it illustrates the changes in the
Anglican Church in those years and brings back many of the characters in the Starbridge series. However, while the church is still at the heart of the books, there is an increased
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According to her publisher
Michael Korda, Howatch was never comfortable with publishing popular fiction, and felt that it didn't satisfy her intellectual and moral needs. He cites this as a reason for her shift away from popular fiction to more serious writing. For Korda, she became the only
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In 1964, she emigrated to the United States, where she worked as a secretary in New York City. She married Joseph
Howatch (4 December 1935 – 25 April 2011), a sculptor and writer, that year and began her career as a writer, finding success almost immediately with her intricately detailed
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After her latter return to
England, Howatch found herself "rich, successful, and living exactly where I wanted to live," but feeling a spiritual emptiness that she ascribed to "trying to hold my divided self together" and questioning her life and what she should do with it.
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through the twentieth century. Each of the six books is self-contained, and each is narrated by a different character. However, the main protagonist of each book also appears in the other books, allowing the author to present the same incidents from different viewpoints.
590:, where he runs a centre for the ministry of healing. His own life is greatly affected by events taking place at the centre, especially after he meets Alice Fletcher, an insecure new worker there, and is forced to reassess his beliefs and commitments as a result.
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to secretly investigate possible sexual transgressions in the household of the Bishop of
Starbridge. Ashworth is helped to recover and to realize the source of his problems by Father Jonathan Darrow, the widowed abbot of Grantchester Abbey of the Fordite monks.
628:, devoted to linking the fields of science and religion. The first holder of this post was the Reverend Dr. Fraser Watts, a psychologist and theologian. Dr. Watts was succeeded in 2014 by the Revd Dr. Andrew Davison, who previously taught at
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specializing in powerful, influential male clients, who finds himself at the centre of a criminal empire and must fight to save his life. Meanwhile, both Graham and Darrow must deal with their own weaknesses in trying to help Gavin.
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of
Starbridge, which is supposedly in the west of England, and also features the Fordite monks, a fictional Anglican monastic order. The cathedral and ecclesiastical hierarchy at Starbridge are based on the real-life
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follows
Nicholas Darrow, son of Jonathan, as he narrowly avoids going off the rails prior to his ordination while investigating the mysterious disappearance of Christian Aysgarth, eldest son of Dean Aysgarth.
259:. Even though she was an only child and her father had died during the Second World War, she has often described her childhood to be a happy and satisfied one. After completing her school studies, she entered
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wrote, "It is a frequently stated basic belief of book publishing that somewhere in the country at any given moment some unknown woman is writing a major best-seller (usually referred to as 'the next
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during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An important theme of the story is how the mansion of Penmarric becomes controlled by various branches of the family. The family fortune was made in the
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Howatch has used some of the profits from her novels to found an academic post with the title 'Starbridge Lecturer in Natural Science and Theology' in the Faculty of Divinity at
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comes full circle and is narrated by a much older but still troubled Charles Ashworth, thirty-one years after he was originally encountered in the first of the books.
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emphasis on characters who are not members of the clergy. Like the six preceding books, each in the trilogy is written in the first person by a different narrator.
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is narrated by the Reverend Dr Charles Ashworth, a Cambridge academic who undergoes something of a spiritual and nervous breakdown after being sent by the
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in the United States), picks up the story of Nicholas Darrow twenty years after the last of the Starbridge novels. Nick is now rector of a church in the
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best-selling novelist to walk away from her own success or to leave her publisher because "he had sold too many copies of her books."
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and misuse of his charismatic powers of healing, and his unsettling mystical visions, or "showings".
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The couple had a daughter in 1971. Upon separating from her husband in 1975, Howatch returned to the
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883:. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan. p. 233.
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231:(born 14 July 1940) is a British author. Her writing career has been distinguished by
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Christianity in earnest. Quotations from contemporary Anglican writers, such as
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Howatch wrote the novel at her kitchen table in New Jersey. Publisher
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The woman's historical novel : British women writers, 1900-2000
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Myers, Doris T. "Forgiven Sinners: Susan Howatch's Church Novels".
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The action of all six books centres around the fictional Anglican
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This series of six books sets out to describe the history of the
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from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially
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Hope College Presents Honorary Degree to Author Susan Howatch
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852:, 3rd edition. London: Europa Publications, 2002.
263:in London and obtained her degree in law in 1961.
395:(son of John of Gaunt) and Henry IV's eldest son
607:follows the life of Gavin Blake, a charismatic
1062:People educated at Sutton High School, London
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243:Susan Howatch was born on 14 July 1940, in
478:) begin in the 1930s and continue through
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56:about living persons that is unsourced or
402:She also wrote three other family sagas,
127:Learn how and when to remove this message
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919:Another Life: A Memoir of Other People
466:The first three books of the series (
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414:(Patrick de Salis) and others; and
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635:Howatch is an Honorary Fellow of
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1047:20th-century English novelists
391:(son of Edward of Woodstock),
383:and his mistress, later wife,
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410:(Edward de Salis), his son,
34:biography of a living person
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840:Social Security Death Index
647:. She currently resides in
494:) take place in the 1960s.
325:Cornish tin mining industry
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16:British author (born 1940)
922:. Random House. pp.
691:The Devil on Lammas Night
630:Westcott House, Cambridge
504:Archbishop of Canterbury
418:followed by its sequel,
305:Earlier novels and sagas
1057:People from Leatherhead
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877:Wallace, Diana (2005).
783:A Question of Integrity
773:The St. Benet's trilogy
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577:A Question of Integrity
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420:The Sins of the Fathers
709:The Rich Are Different
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365:Edward III of England
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820:Book Series in Order
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356:The Wheel of Fortune
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972:Graduation in Sarum
948:"Dr Andrew Davison"
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179:Language
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896:7 March
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