The Traditional and
Quiet Life of a Retiring Rector is Shaken Up When a New, Young
Curate Comes Along
Casting the Church
in a more human light, author Janice B. Scott’s novel
Heaven Spent
reveals priests as people who experience all of the same
emotions and struggles as the rest of us.
Curates are always
over-eager to get going and change everything. Incumbents are
just the opposite; they are very cautious and unwilling to
accept any change. So what happens when a young woman takes on a
curate position that reports to a controlling rector?
The Reverend Polly
Hewitt, a recently ordained deacon in the Church of England, is
starting her first post as a curate for Canon Henry Winstone.
Henry, who is nearing retirement, is very traditional and set in
his ways.
Polly is straight
out of college and full of energy and new ideas; she clashes
with old-fashioned Henry and his wife, Mavis, from the outset
and is soon in trouble with the bishop. Following his
difficulties with Polly, Henry has a breakdown and begins to
question his faith. The arrival of a mysterious woman, come to
find a father she’s never met, further complicates. And then
Polly is falsely accused of a crime and arrested.
These intertwined
lives collide and unravel in this fast-paced, engrossing drama
that sheds light on what is means to be of faith, and to be
simply human nonetheless.
