Ysenda Maxtone Graham | LOVE DIVINE
‘ . . . the best chronicler of contemporary life, mores, pretensions, cross-generational conversations, speeches, sermons, egregious letters, displays of idiocy, ever. Every social situation debagged or deconstructed with such acuity and wit. I adored it.’ – Valerie Grove on Love Divine
We are delighted to introduce Love Divine, the debut novella by Foxed favourite Ysenda Maxtone Graham, which will be published on 1 November as a Slightly Foxed Occasional Book.
It’s the first week in January, and the inhabitants of Lamley Green, a leafy village on the edge of London, are preparing to face the New Year.
At No. 12 Holly Grove however the curtains remain closed. Lucy Fanthorpe’s husband Nick, respected lawyer and stalwart of the church choir, died unexpectedly on New Year’s Day and Lucy is in bed with her head under the duvet as letters of sympathy slip through the letterbox. Laid low by grief she’s also wracked by suspicion. Nick’s behaviour before he died was strange. Was he having an affair?
Meanwhile Lamley’s parish church St Luke’s is without a resident rector, and a team of retired priests and parishioners, under the leadership of Archdeacon Martin, is keeping the show on the road during the interregnum. An advertisement has been placed in the Church Times for a ‘collaborative and caring priest, with a passion for growth, who can build and sustain a vibrant and proactive team’.
Just as the parish is in a state of flux and anxiety, so are its parishioners: grieving Lucy, Carol the lugubrious church volunteer, snobbish Elizabeth, commitment-phobic Vicki and Eliot trying to break even with their B&B, Latin master Hugh on the cusp of a solitary retirement, ruthless newcomer Chantelle who’s prepared to do anything to get her daughter into the over-subscribed church school, and Rachel the ordained sceptic who dares to speak her mind.
With her usual consummate skill, Ysenda Maxtone Graham, well-known to readers of Slightly Foxed for her hilarious and bestselling Terms & Conditions, brings together the members of this small community in a light-hearted but touching story which also points up affectionately but with deadly accuracy what’s wrong – and what’s right – with the modern C of E. Is Love Divine in the air? If so it will come in many unexpected guises.
With best wishes, as ever, from the SF staff
Isabel, Rebecca, Ruth, Edie & Jennie
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