Stone Yard Devotional

Exhausted by her life in Sydney, a woman in middle age goes back to the flat, dry country of her childhood and, without quite meaning to, joins a handful of nuns living apart from the world in New South Wales. She has no faith and no idea how to pray, and the move puzzles everyone, from the husband she has separated from to her friends, and leaves her wondering too. Her account of the sisters' routines is threaded with memories, especially of her dead mother. Then three things disturb the peace. Mice overrun the place, and the nuns battle them daily. The bones of Sister Jenny, who went missing years ago and is believed to have been killed, are brought home. And with them comes Sister Helen Parry, a well-known environmental campaigner whom the narrator once knew at school and has reasons to remember uneasily.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Set in

Australia

First published

2023

Author's age

58 when first published

ISBN

9781399724340 (Sceptre, United Kingdom)

9798217047352 (Riverhead Books, United States)

9781399724388 (Sceptre, United Kingdom)

9798217047369 (Riverhead Books, United States)

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