The Breath of Peace

Madeleine Hazell and William de Bulmer have been married a year. She is a healer, a wise woman, practical, intelligent and blunt. He is not only an ex-monk, but an ex-abbot, a man accustomed to authority, a gifted administrator, at home with figures - but perhaps less capable in such matters as shutting up chickens for the night. They are deeply, irrevocably in love. And every conversation may become a battlefield that leaves both wounded and resentful.When the aged monk who served as...
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Madeleine Hazell and William de Bulmer have been married a year. She is a healer, a wise woman, practical, intelligent and blunt. He is not only an ex-monk, but an ex-abbot, a man accustomed to authority, a gifted administrator, at home with figures - but perhaps less capable in such matters as shutting up chickens for the night. They are deeply, irrevocably in love. And every conversation may become a battlefield that leaves both wounded and resentful.When the aged monk who served as cellarer dies, Father John, the Abbot of nearby St Alcuin's Abbey, finds himself critically short-handed. Who will handle the rents? The provisions? He is a gifted infirmarian, a capable leader, but estate management is beyond his competence. With a sense of rising panic he turns to his friend, the man who renounced his vows for love, the former Father William - only to find that his own pastoral skills may be required in matters matrimonial ...This is the seventh novel in the St Alcuin's Abbey series, which began with The Hawk and the Dove. Penelope Wilcock publishes a popular blog at www.kindredofthequietway.co.uk.