Virgin & Child by Maggie Hamand

 

From Amazon

MORNING STAR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020

A genre-busting, gender-bending Vatican thriller. What happens when everything you know is thrown into doubt?

And you’re the Pope?

The recently elected Irish Pope Patrick has plans for his future Church. Then he is attacked in St Peter’s Square. Cardinals turn against him. Shocking revelations threaten his traditional status and his faith. In this novel where nothing is as it seems, Catholicism and modern morality are held in tension. Pope Patrick has to face challenges and make choices he could never have imagined.

‘This is a strange and strangely touching novel and it is also written with great elegance and authority. It tackles head on some of the most challenging issues for the Roman Catholic Church around gender and sexuality and at the same time has some of the loveliest, most persuasive, writing about personal prayer that I have ever encountered in fiction.’ – Sara Maitland

‘Virgin and Child cleverly merges crime with Catholicism and piety with a dangerous love. Pope Patrick, the Irish Pope, is famed for his humanity but unaware of the subversive forces plotting his destruction. The novel is wonderfully original and absorbing, from the halls of the Vatican to its explosive conclusion.’ – Mary Flanagan

My thoughts

My thanks to Helen Richardson for the opportunity to take part in the Blog tour of this book.  Until I was sent an email asking if I would be interested in taking part, I have to say that this is a book and Author that I had never heard of before.  

This is not an easy read to review at all, to say too much would definitely give away the story and I most certainly do not want to do that.  It deals with so many taboo topics and makes you think about things.  How would people react if this was to happen?  It would most certainly put the cat among the pigeons in many ways.  

Due to the storyline, this book may not be what a lot of Catholics will want to read, but if they are readers that read with a completely open mind then why not give it a go and immerse yourself in the life of Pope Patrick and those that surround him.  Speaking as a Catholic, it most definitely made me think and I was intrigued wanting to know where the Author was taking us on this journey.

This was a well written story that is labelled as a thriller, but it's a slow burning thriller that doesn't hit you head on, it draws you in as it wanders along laying down the scenes among the covers.  

I will most definitely be looking for further reads by this Author, as I am wondering what she will hit us with next.