Defying a modern Church that has a larger collection of invertebrates than the London Zoo, an eccentric, faithful priest reaches out to the world.   When bumbling traditionalist Fr. Ambrose is forced out of his parish by his trendy bishop, he continues his ministry as an itinerant in his old Ford Fiesta. He may have lost his marbles, but he hasn’t lost his faith, and he’s determined to save his oddball flock.   There’s Molly the Soc...

‘IF YOU READ ANY BOOK THIS YEAR, READ THIS ONE – MARTINA COLE‘A LIFE STORY FAR MORE INCREDIBLE THAN ANY BESTSELLER’ - JEFFREY ARCHER‘Sometimes today I still cry for the lonely, frightened little boy I was then – so unhappy and so longing for love – and marvel at not only surviving the brutality and the other appalling abuse but also, in the end, triumphing over it all.’Abused by those who were supposed to love and cherish him, Michael Seed had to fight for survival aga...

Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Christie’s wildly unconventional investigator, Parker Pyne, all make appearances in The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories—a riveting collection of short stories featuring a host of murderous crimes of passion, pleasure, and profit.There's a body in a trunk; a dead girl's reflection is caught in a mirror; and one corpse is back from the grave, while another is envisioned in the recurring nightmare of a terrified eccentric. W...

In 1950, Kathleen O'Malley and her two sisters were legally abducted from their mother and placed in an industrial school ran by the Sisters of Mercy order of nuns, who also ran the notorious Magdalene Homes. The rape of eight-year-old Kathleen by a neighbour had triggered their removal - the Irish authorities ruling that her mother must have been negligent. They were only allowed a strictly supervised visit once a year, until they were permitted to leave the harsh and cruel regime of the ...

When Senior NSW Police Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox told the ABC’s Lateline programme on November 8, 2012, that the Catholic Church had covered up crimes by paedophile priests, silenced investigations and destroyed crucial evidence to avoid prosecution, the public outrage that ensued triggered a Royal Commission into institutional child abuse. A case of Church interference Fox outlined was that of Patricia Feenan’s son, Daniel who was a fourteen-year-old altar boy when he was first ...

With Star Over Bethlehem, the beloved Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie shines in a totally unexpected way, offering readers a wondrous collection of poems and holiday short stories.A retelling of the Christmas Story in a way you’ve never heard it before. . . . The fable of a donkey who carries a mother and child safely to Egypt. . . . The tale of a widow who dislikes people until she meets a stranger. . . .From the most popular writer of all time c...

'I was living in a world where a priest who spoke the words of God used me for sex, and there was no-one to tell. The world where this horror happened didn't exist for anyone else.' As a boy in Ireland where everyone -- from among his own neighbours to the powers of church and state -- chose to deny that a priest could sexually assault a child, Colm O'Gorman felt only shame, guilt and fear at the regular rape and abuse he suffered. But Colm would go on to make history, successfully suing t...

Conceived out of wedlock, Ann was just two months old when placed in the care of a Catholic orphanage. From the beginning, she was taught her mother was sinful and that she would be too unless the devil was beaten from her soul. She was sexually abused from an early age and forced to work long hours on the orphanage farm. At night, three or four nuns performed the grisly ritual of stripping Ann naked, tying her to the four posts of a bed and savagely attacking her with belts, hoops and sti...

'The best vicar ever' - Caitlin MoranTHE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE CANON CLEMENT SERIES, THE REVEREND RICHARD COLESAfter a life of sex, drugs and the Communards, recounted in his acclaimed memoir Fathomless Riches, the Reverend Richard Coles devoted himself to God and Christianity. So what is life like for the parson in Britain today?From his ordination, through Advent and Christmas to Lent and Ea...

Brought up in the East End of London, son of a policeman, John was already dabbling in crime by his early teens, ending up in a young offenders institute and then a borstal. He’d left home at 15 and the only occupation he knew was theft. He landed a job doing security at concerts for stars such as Simply Red, Queen and Bruce Springsteen and was lured deeper into the world of drugs and crime. By his 20s he was well-acquainted with the capital’s criminal underworld. Thanks to drug dealing an...

The best jokes, gags and scenes from a true British comedy classic.‘Cheer up, could be worse. State the country's in, we could be free.’‘Doctor: I want you to fill one of those containers for me.Fletcher (other side of the room): What, from 'ere?’You can count the number of truly classic British sitcoms on one hand – well, perhaps two. But however many hands you use, Porridge will be one of the first programmes to register for inclusion. Undoubtedly one of th...

Winner of The 1963 National Book Award for Fiction.The hero of J.F. Powers’s comic masterpiece is Father Urban, a man of the cloth who is also a man of the world. Charming, with an expansive vision of the spiritual life and a high tolerance for moral ambiguity, Urban enjoys a national reputation as a speaker on the religious circuit and has big plans for the future. But then the provincial head of his dowdy religious order banishes him to a retreat house in the Minnesota hinterland...