Oliver Goldsmith's hugely successful novel of 1766 remained for generations one of the most highly regarded and beloved works of eighteenth-century fiction. It contains, in the figure of the vicar himself, one of the most harmlessly simply and unsophisticated yet also ironically complex narrators ever to appear in English fiction.

"Annie Zook--the preacher's eldest daughter--is expected to join the Amish church, but at 20 she is 'still deciding.' Because of the strict rules that guide the Plain community, she must continually squelch her artistic passion, although it has become her solace"--Provided by publisher.

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 trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church -- the only available shelter from the rain -- and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the days of suffering that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and...

In 1956, toward the end of Rev. John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. This is also the tale of wisdom forged during his solitary life and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

Olivia Lockhart-Griffin Cedar Cove, Washington Dear Reader, I'm pretty shocked by something I've just heard. Emily Flemming is afraid that her husband, Dave, might be having an affair. She apparently found an earring in his pocket-and it wasn't hers. And she says he's been coming home late and acting secretive. Not only that, some jewelry was recently stolen from an old woman, and Dave (in his capacity as pastor) used to visit her a lot ... This is...

A novel of two sisters in postwar England that lets you “step into the Jane Austen–like lives of Harriet and Belinda Bede” (The Christian Science Monitor).
Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve—the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church—for thirty years. Belinda’s much more confident,...

Three novellas that brilliantly portray English country and clergy life at the turn of the nineteenth century from the author of Middlemarch.
 
Initially appearing in Blackwood’s Magazine, this trio of linked stories comprises George Eliot’s first published work. Together they form a portrait of small-town life in Midlands, England, where changes are affecting both society at large and religious beliefs...

The story of the friendship between two women--one the less-than-perfect clergyman's wife, the other younger and unmarried.

"After five hectic years of retirement from Lord's Chapel, Father Tim Kavanagh returns with his wife, Cynthia, to Mitford where he - and his beloved friends and family - face the challenge of settling into the next phase of their lives"--