Angeline

Quinn’s (The Night Child) second novel follows Sister Angeline, formerly known as Meg, who joined the convent at 16 after the death of her family. When the diocese closes her cloistered order in Chicago, she is ordered to go to the Light of the Sea, a convent off the coast of Washington State. Far from her quiet life of praying for others, she is thrust into a world of rebel nuns as she deals with her own grief, atonement, and the threats to the convent’s way of life. Quinn offers a beautifully complex story of a young woman’s search for redemption. Angelina’s story weaves together the traditions of the Catholic Church, the pain of loss, the weight of grief, and the trials of living in 21st-century America, and listeners will be swept up in it. Cassandra Campbell’s narration brings young Angeline, a physically and emotionally sheltered woman, through the stages of grief, growth, and healing that bring radical change. Campbell’s characterizations of the feminist, cursing, and antihierarchical nuns are particularly entertaining.