In 1956, as a minister approaches the end of his life, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets.

In the New York Times bestseller An Altar in the World, acclaimed author Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey by building upon where she left off in Leaving Church. With the honesty of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and the spiritual depth of Anne Lamott (Grace, Eventually), Taylor shares how she learned to find God beyond the church walls by embracing the sacred as a natural part of everyday life. In An Altar in the World,

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Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack, the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years, comes home too, looking for refuge and to try to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain. Jack is a bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father. Yet he remains Reverend...

In the wake of being sexually assaulted by her pastor, sixteen-year-old Amina struggles to regain her footing until she finds the strength within herself to confront her abuser in court. "Sixteen-year-old Amina Conteh has always believed in using her words as her weapon--even when it gets her into trouble. After cursing at a classmate, her father forces her to volunteer at their church with Pastor Johnson. But Pastor Johnson isn't the holy man everyone...

When Cora Seaborne's domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Seeking refuge, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend. Cora learns of a fearsome creature said to roam the marshes claiming human lives. After nearly 300 years, the mythical Essex Serpent is said to have taken the life of a young...

It's Christmastime, and the Fairchild family is spending the holidays on idyllic Sanpere Island in Maine while the Reverend Thomas Fairchild recuperates from surgery. His caterer wife, Faith, is rejoicing in the rare, holiday family-time together--but Faith's high spirits are dampened when she discovers the body of a young woman that is somehow connected to an abandoned, newborn baby boy.