Through These Dark Gates - Biegel, Brooklyn K.

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Résumé :
A STUNNING DEBUT ... AN EPIC FULL OF EMOTION, CONTROVERSY, AND INTRIGUE. LONGLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL FICTION COMPANY'S 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD Watch the official book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFz18l2bHM&t=17s (Copy link) 1845: Chased by demons of his past, John Dallington flees his Irish homeland in hopes of silencing the throes of his guilty conscience by creating a new life on the American continent. But when the death of his wife leaves his heart and faith shipwrecked, he doubts whether God's eyes see the pain inside his soul, and he sets out to create a mask that will hide the link to everything he once loved. 1851: Innocent, lonely, and craving to be cherished, eleven-year-old orphan Kate Fletcher attends her First Communion service with a heart full of trepidation and awe. She knows that when she grows up she must be pleasing to God and to his Church, and she will do so by devoting her life to becoming a Sister of Mercy. But when the time of Final Vows arrives, her predictable future is suddenly overturned by an unexpected request for service, and she finds herself questioning both God and the Church. Set against the backdrop of the nineteenth-century Irish immigration movement and the American Civil War, this fascinating story follows the lives of Kate and John as they collide amidst the turmoil and treachery of a war-torn Washington, DC, where they both are forced to grapple with questions about their pasts, their choices, and the will of God....

Sommaire:
KATHERINE FLETCHER... YOU MUST REALIZE THAT IT IS ALWAYS GOD'S WILL THAT A YOUNG GIRL OFFER HERSELF WILLINGLY UPON THE ALTAR OF SERVICE TO THE CHURCH OF ROME. Kate Fletcher can never forget that she is the orphaned child of an adulterous woman-it is the reason she lives at the Magdalene Asylum. Her fate as a stigmatized member of society is sealed, and it is her duty to atone for her mother's sin by binding herself irrevocably to the Roman Catholic Church as a Sister of Mercy. Union Sergeant John Dallington will not allow distant regrets to follow him. He is a Protestant, and a past littered with painful secrets can neither threaten his identity in the doctrines of Reformed theology nor shake the confidence inherited through his patriarchal role as father to his two children-until he meets Sister Kate. Set against the backdrop of the nineteenth-century Irish immigration movement and the American Civil War, this fascinating story follows the lives of Kate and John as they collide amidst the turmoil and treachery of a war-torn Washington, DC, where they both are forced to grapple with questions about their pasts, their choices, and the will of God. The rebellious but furiously honest Collette Clayton, the tobacco-chewing illiterate Private Jack Gunderson, the confirmed bachelor and pragmatic skeptic Dr. Robert Hall, and the fiery Scottish midwife Ellen Kelly are just a few of the unforgettable secondary characters who play into the intriguing subplots of this rich piece of historical fiction. Exploring themes of innocence and betrayal, slavery and free-will, and the conflict between the search for romantic fulfillment and the quest to find peace with God and oneself, Through These Dark Gates is a compelling novel about a young woman's journey-and one man's battle-through the labyrinths of religious skepticism and self-deception toward ultimate self-realization and the knowledge of what it means to be truly free....