Sunday, January 22, 2006

Book Review: Glittering Images



Glittering Images on amazon.com

Reader Rating: 9.5/10

Salaams! Finished up a great book on my recent trip to Pak/Afg called Glittering Images, by a British author named Susan Howatch. She is one of my favorite writers and always spins a very interesting & intricate yarn. The is the 2nd time I have read this book--first time being about 10 years ago while in NWChina.

_Glittering Images_ is the first in a series Howatch wrote that has come to known as the "Church of England" series. Howatch wrote this series following an already very successful earlier writing career which took her to live in the US for a few years.

She later become a believer and took up writing about a fictional set of characters who are loosely based on real historical characters in the CoE Several of the character reappear in several books, though each one can stand alone. There are now 9 books in the series, each one nice & thick, weighing in somewhere around 500 pages each:

Glamorous Powers
Ultimate Prizes
Scandalous Risks
Mystical Paths
Absolute Truths
The Wonder Worker
The High Flyer
The Heartbreaker


The characters in her books are exquisitely drawn; they have a psychological, emotional, and spiritual depth rarely seen in other novels. The characters face multiple moral dilemmas, convoluted and surprising turns of events, spiritual and emotional breakdowns, and undergo wonderfully detailed (and realistic) redemptive processes. Many of them are dealing with generational sins--"the sins of the fathers" passed onto the sons.

I'm working my way back through the series for the 2nd time...and will be enjoying the process all over again as I go!

All for now--wes

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"If you're not standing on the edge,
you're taking up too much room."
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