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Description edit
A dazzling novel of passion and spirituality—the instant blockbuster bestseller from the author of The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd’s phenomenal debut, The Secret Life of Bees , became a runaway bestseller that is still on the New York Times bestseller list more than two... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Hugh: Jessie's husband, a psychiatrist
- Hepzibah: Friend of Kat and Nel. She is obsessed with the Gulla culture and gives tours.
- Father Dominic: A rather eccentric monk famous for wearing a straw hat. Wrote a book on the mermaid Sinara.
- Jessie Sullivan: The protagonist. A middle-aged woman seeking a relationship apart from her husband and daughter.
- Dee: College-aged daughter of Jessie and Hugh
- Mike: Jessie's brother who lives in California.
- Max: The island dog
- Father Sebastian: Bald-headed monk at the monastary.
- Brother Thomas: A lawyer who joins the monostary after the death of his wife
- Dom Anthony: Add a description of this character.
- Kat: Jessie's godmother.
- Mary
- Joe
- Linda
- Shem: Ferry boatman
- Bonnie: Kat's daughter
- Chagall
- Whit: aka Father Thomas. Came to monastary after wife died, leaving law firm and everything behind.
- Nel: Jessie and Mike's mother. She is a deeply religious woman who starts the novel's events by cutting off her finger.
Quotes edit
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“So few people what they`re capable of. At forty-two I`d never done anything that took my breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem-my chronic inability to astonish myself”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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I finally figured out that what matters is just giving over to what you love.”
Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers -
when a person was in need of cataclysmic change, of a whole new center in the personality, for instance, his or her psyche would induce an infatuation, an erotic attachment, an intense falling-in-love.
Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers -
It had made me feel bereft over the immensity of the world, the extraordinary things people did with their lives—though, really, I didn’t want to do any of those particular things. I didn’t know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.
Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers -
I felt amazed at the choosing one had to do, over and over, a million times daily—choosing love, then choosing it again, how loving and being in love could be so different.
Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers -
All my life, in nameless, indeterminate ways, I’d tried to complete myself with someone else—first my father, then Hugh, even Whit, and I didn’t want that anymore. I wanted to belong to myself.
Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers -
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.”
Highlighted by 19 Kindle customers -
“God is the one whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.”
Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers -
It felt cruel and astonishing to realize that our relationship had never belonged out there in the world, in a real house where you wash socks and slice onions. It belonged in the shadowed linings of the soul.
Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers -
there’s release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there’s nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at least, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.
Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers -
At forty-two I’d never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem—my chronic inability to astonish myself.
Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
First Sentence edit
February 17, 1988, I opened my eyes and heard a procession of sounds: first the phone going off on the opposite side of the bed, rousing us at 5:04 A.M. to what could only be a calamity, then rain pummeling the roof of our old Victorian house, sluicing it's sneaky way to the basement, and finally small puffs of air coming from Hugh's lower lip, each one perfectly timed, like a metronome.
Series & Lists edit
This is book 9 of 10 in Publishers Weekly Bestselling Novels In 2005. (authoritative list)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Sue Monk Kidd (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Viking Penguin
Country: USA
Publication Date: Add the publication date.
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking Penguin
Country: USA
Publication Date: Add the publication date.
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 336
Awards edit
- Quill Award (2005: General Fiction)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 813.54
Subjects edit
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