I have just come to the realization that Howatch has now firmly established herself as one of my all-time favorite authors. Her character-driven novels, which are set in a diverse range of historical eras, have an irresistible allure that draws me in with their captivating intrigue, profound depth, and meticulous attention to detail.

No matter what the specific setting may be, these novels have a remarkable ability to speak directly to the human condition. "Glittering Images" refers to that outer self that we present to the world, the one we desire others to see, the version of ourselves that we believe represents our very best in terms of being successful, attractive, and perhaps even godly. It is the projection of those traits that we hold dear and value highly. However, one must wonder at what cost this projection comes to our true selves.

The story is set among monks and bishops, and it features long and rather profound conversations that on the surface appear to be Christian counseling but actually borrow heavily from the principles of psychoanalysis.

When I describe Howatch's works as "character-driven," please do not assume that she simply writes page after page of dry character analysis. On the contrary, there are mysteries to be solved, crucial decisions to be made, and a wealth of engaging plotlines. In fact, I consider her books to be real page-turners! But at the very heart of it all, it is the gradual revelation of each individual's evolving character, whether for better or for worse, that provides the most compelling drama and serves as the anchor for the themes that Howatch so skillfully wishes to address.

This is not high literature. Howatch's Church of England series is truly similar to romance novels for Anglicans.

It's not that they are devoid of sex - there is an abundance of it, mostly angst-ridden, as one would anticipate for a set of Anglo-Catholic classics. Instead, in a romance novel, the narrative place of sex is occupied by spiritual direction.

You don't have fantasy lovers; instead, you have psychic monks who can precisely tell you what is amiss in your relationship with God and your family, and what you need to do to rectify it.

Anyone who has had a genuine spiritual director - or, worse, aspired to be one - will find this fantasy as irresistible as I did.

Of the four that I have completed, I still hold this one in the highest regard. Partly it is because its narrator is my favorite (he's a scholar-priest for heaven's sake).

Partly, too, it is because the temporal setting of the later books is more familiar, enabling me to more easily perceive how Howatch is constructing her world from tropes. (The swinging-Sixties fourth volume, "Scandalous Risks", is particularly dreadful in this regard.)

I read this book/series many years ago.

My distinct memories are rather hazy now. However, after reading other reviews, the general story has gradually come back to me.

I do vividly remember being highly intrigued by learning about the ecclesiastical structure of the Church of England. The practice of having a spiritual guide for their pastors was truly fascinating.

It was the spiritual faith of the main characters and their arduous journeys that kept me engaged and reading throughout the entire series.

The device employed by the author to advance the story through characters who appear in varying amounts throughout the series was extremely effective.

This enables the reader to view the same situation through different "eyes" depending on whose point of view the particular book is highlighting.

I seem to recall there was a character in one book that I did not particularly like at first. But when I read a subsequent book, the actions of that character became much more clear, and empathy was actually engendered within me.

This taught me a valuable lesson about people's motives and how we simply can't know everything about someone's actions if we don't know the whole story.

These are indeed well-written books, but they are not for the faint of heart. They are long, involved, and very thought-provoking.

If you choose to read them, be prepared to be challenged on many levels.

It will be an intellectually stimulating and rewarding experience.

My hometown newspaper, The Seattle Times, described this book as “intriguing... honest and engrossing.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer said “Passionately eloquent... The dialogue throughout this book is brilliantly crisp...”

I notice that other reviews (although certainly not all) have also given this book some high praise.

However, I thought it was trashy.

I’d never heard of the author but evidently she has written several books about the politics within the Anglican Church, the struggle with one’s conscience and rules for living a spiritual life within the demands and/or confines of the church.

A friend of mine who is in training to be a deacon in the Episcopal Church recommended it. So much for her! (I’m kidding.)

The book’s story line centers around a young, good-looking (of course), brilliant (of course), academic clergyman. He is sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose protégé he is, to report on whether there’s anything nefarious going on in the diocese of a successful, good-looking (of course), brilliant (of course), and charismatic bishop in the cathedral just beyond Grantchester (Ely?).

Well, actually not in the diocese itself but in the household of the bishop. Our spy, Dr. Ashworth (yes, all of his brilliance is worth little more than ashes), has to decide whether the unusual household arrangement in the bishop’s house is just unusual but entirely above board or is an unsavory ménage a trois and has the potential to create a huge embarrassment to the church. So much for the basic outline of the plot.

But then what a tangled, absurd web is woven. We discover various characters have a prurient interest in sex or no interest in sex. And/or repressed sexual desire or out-of-control sexual pouncing. Hey! We’re talking about the Anglican clergy! Of course they’re conflicted – they want to serve God.

At least two, maybe more, of the characters become so overwrought that they suffer dramatic nervous breakdowns. Then we enter pages and pages of psycho-babble, spiritual counseling, Freudian analysis in finding an answer in the quest for father figures and attempting to discover what makes a real father, wondering about the mothers, and even an exorcism. It’s all too much. Way too much.

I read it to the end – 434 pages in my paperback edition - (skimmed some) because I wanted to and yet dreaded to find out how the author was going to resolve this mess. And I was not disappointed in my dread of the ending. So pat.

Perhaps what disappointed me most was that a woman author had left her female characters so ill defined and uninteresting and subservient. Loretta, the one American in the story, could have been interesting had she been given a reason for appearing other than to be an object for revenge and Lyle, part of the ménage a trios, especially, turned out to be disappointing in the end. At first she appeared to be mysterious, strong, and intelligent. In the end, she was none of those things.

Oh, yeah, and the “glittering images” theme was played out ad nauseam.

For a book that centers around Anglican priests, this novel appears to be overly fixated on sex. But perhaps that's the Catholic within me speaking.

The story commences with a priest being dispatched on a covert mission by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Subsequently, he derails and must sort out his internal turmoil before解开 the mystery he has been tasked with. As others have noted, the book consists largely of dialogue, which isn't as dull as one might assume. The story progresses at a reasonable pace, although it does become mired in the middle when there are approximately 100 pages of spiritual counseling that grow somewhat tiresome and seem slightly overdone.

However, my most significant disappointment with the story lies in the female characters. I actually had to turn back to the cover at one point to verify the author's name because I was astonished that any woman would pen such one-dimensional characters. All the women in the story seem to exist merely as adornments to the men or to fulfill their sexual desires.

The book was adequate enough to complete but not excellent enough to prompt me to read others in the series.

I really wanted to have a deeper affection for this novel than I actually did.

It got off to a great start, which vividly reminded me of a Victorian novel of manners. I had a great liking for the protagonist, and I could truly sympathize with the difficult situation he found himself in.

The first section of the novel was extremely intriguing, filled with humor, and was truly entertaining. It managed to capture my attention right from the beginning.

However, the second part of the novel turned out to be nothing more than a highly melodramatic therapy session. Here, secrets were continuously revealed one after another. After each revelation, the protagonist seemed to be gradually ready to face his new reality. And by new reality, I really mean it with a capital N.

What initially started off so well unfortunately became a bit silly. This was further exacerbated by the introduction of religious doctrine and a rather long and overly melodramatic therapy session. It seemed to lose the charm and authenticity that it had in the beginning.

Overall, my initial expectations for the novel were not fully met, and it left me with a sense of disappointment.

What just happened to me? It's truly baffling. I can't quite determine if I had a session with a therapist or watched an episode of Downtown Abbey. It couldn't be the latter because I don't recall that show being so adult in nature. So, it must be the former. However, I'm not entirely certain that most therapy sessions would involve the concept of "exorcisms of demons."

This book had a very English feel in the pace of its dialogue, which I really relished. I also keep pondering what the therapy sessions would have been like if the author had been delving into neurobiology instead of Freud.

Now, the question is, should I continue with the series? I'm not really sure if I can endure any more trashy romance, but at the same time, I'm so incredibly curious to discover what will unfold next! It's a real conundrum. I'm torn between my aversion to the potentially over-the-top romance and my insatiable desire to know the story's progression.

Will I be able to resist the temptation and move on, or will I succumb to my curiosity and keep reading? Only time will tell.

Susan Howatch has penned a captivating series of books that revolve around the Episcopal church.

These books are rife with political and personal intrigue, making them a thrilling read.

Howatch is an exceptionally talented writer who has the ability to craft characters with remarkable depth and complexity.

It was Joanne who first introduced me to this wonderful series, and I'm truly grateful.

If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend reading these books in order.

Doing so will allow you to fully immerse yourself in the rich and detailed world that Howatch has created.

You'll become engrossed in the lives of the characters and follow their journey with bated breath.

So, pick up the first book and get ready to be transported into a world of drama, mystery, and passion.

You won't be disappointed!

Equal parts appalling and heartbreaking, Glittering Images is a remarkable tour-de-force that defies traditional genre boundaries. It emerges from the context of the pervasive "Jesus Movement," yet it's far from the typical Christian Inspiration we might expect from authors like Beverly Lewis or Francine Rivers. Here, real theology intertwines with a great deal of ill-repressed eroticism. People engage in genuine conversations about God while simultaneously failing to uphold the very principles they claim to believe. They are not so much hypocrites as individuals struggling every step of the way towards the ideal of "not my will but yours."

Narratively, the book begins in a super plot-driven manner, with a false romanticism and an air of mystery. The most compelling developments initially occur between the men. Then, it diverges into the slow-paced retreat of a monastery and kind of picks up the plot again towards the end. However, by that point, I was already tired. I simply didn't like these people. The character I liked best was perhaps the "vilest" and most broken of them all. The last two pages are truly radiant and might make the two-thirds that preceded it seem somewhat worthwhile, but the middle two-thirds consist of long-winded dialogue. This spiritual counseling dialogue is interspersed with occasional action in the last third, yet everyone does precisely what they had already said they would do. There are no moments when humans surprise each other, themselves, or the reader.
The spiritual counsel serves as a useful soul-flaying operation for both the characters and, at least for this reader, as it examines our hairy hearts. Truly, the insights are profound, yet at times they can also be trite and obvious. And having to get every bit of backstory through dialogue - so much dialogue - rather than using flashbacks once in a while, is tiresome. How do these people remember every single thing another person says, when, and how? Where is the fallibility of human memory? Howatch does a decent job of compartmentalizing each speaker's experience so that no one is omniscient, but despite what they say, there is very little mystery about other people. We may not know all that anyone says or does, but the remaining questions don't leave much to the imagination that is worth further contemplation.
Listen, I hate to suggest that an author should have written a different book than the one she did, because Glittering Images must have been the book Howatch wanted and needed to write. However, I would have preferred to read this story from Alex Jardine's perspective, to experience his breakdown, and even better, to have gotten it from the woman at the center of the tale, Lyle Christie. Charles Ashworth is uninterestingly insufferable, and I was always eager to get him back to the palace and Cathedral.
Also, I found myself wanting to tear out pages (but since I borrowed the book, and I'm a good book-borrower!) every time I read the phrase "glittering image." We get it! Say it once or twice and then move on.
Here, stars are kind of meaningless. I read this book with glee in a year when I've not read anything else with such enthusiasm. These characters both moved and outraged me. But I was also quite ready for the book to end and felt none of that lingering desire to stay with these people. Well, except for Jardine, whose past and future I would continue to read about, but I'm pretty sure there was never a follow-up written.

I received this book as a gift/recommendation from a friend, and I must say that I really enjoyed it.

Susan Howatch has an incredibly keen sense of the environment within the Church of England in the early 20th century. The backdrop of evolving social views regarding marriage and divorce, which are growing into tension with those of the Church, neatly frames the stories of the central characters.

The spiritual and psychological complexity of each key figure in the book is beautifully rendered. It's as if Howatch peels back the layers of their personalities, revealing their deepest fears, desires, and conflicts. This not only makes for a captivating read but also offers a wealth of material upon which to reflect further.

After reading this first installment, I find myself intrigued and may very well continue to read books in this series. I'm eager to see how the stories of these complex characters unfold and how they navigate the challenges and changes that come their way.

Overall, this book has left a lasting impression on me, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in historical fiction, religious themes, or character-driven stories.

Wild, weird, and wonderful - these three words perfectly encapsulate the essence of a truly extraordinary experience.

When we think of the wild, we envision vast landscapes untouched by human hands, teeming with diverse flora and fauna. It is a place where nature reigns supreme, and the laws of survival are harsh but beautiful.

The weird aspect adds an element of mystery and the unexpected. It could be strange phenomena, unique creatures, or unconventional cultures that challenge our preconceived notions.

And the wonderful? That's the feeling of awe and inspiration that comes from experiencing something truly remarkable. It could be a breathtaking sunset, a magical encounter with an animal, or a moment of profound connection with the natural world.

Together, wild, weird, and wonderful create a tapestry of experiences that are both unforgettable and life-changing. They remind us of the beauty and complexity of the world around us and encourage us to explore, discover, and embrace the unknown.

So, go out there and seek the wild, the weird, and the wonderful. Let yourself be amazed and inspired by the extraordinary.

This is one that I am, again having trouble reviewing.

Howatch is an absolutely amazing writer. Her description, storytelling and character development is almost unparalleled. The storyline, which is intricate in its characters, time and place, is a great feat and quite beautiful most of the time.

The problem I have with this book is the strange psychological turn it takes toward the middle and end. I like the character of Darrow, but there were times when his psycho babble was just too much to handle. I understand and appreciate the inner turmoil of Ashworth and how that plays out to others, but I just didn't like how the counseling part of Ashworth and Darrow was portrayed.

It seemed a bit forced and not as natural as the rest of the story. However, despite this flaw, the book still has many redeeming qualities. The overall plot is engaging and keeps the reader hooked from beginning to end. The characters are complex and well-developed, and the setting is vividly described.

Howatch's writing style is also a joy to read, with her use of language and imagery adding depth and nuance to the story. Overall, while I had some issues with this book, I would still recommend it to fans of psychological thrillers and literary fiction.