Angeline Audiobook

Quotes

• “Anna Quinn’s novels dive deep into the human psyche, exploring our capacity to harm and heal. Angeline is a call to open arms, a clear-eyed view of our often-flawed humanity and how the power of compassion can change everything. It is a novel of gorgeous sentences and beautiful messages. It left me feeling stronger, wiser, and in complete awe.”

  — Erica Bauermeister, New York Times bestselling author of The Scent Keeper

• “Angeline is a mystical hymn to the power of women in community, with an entry point that only the rare writer has the guts to brave. Quinn does it with empathy and acumen, never vilifying. Instead, as you read her lyrical prose, you feel her pure, seeking spirit. Her never heavy-handed, third-eye-wide-open aperture, as she links arms with you from the first sentence…all the way to the last. I loved this gem of a novel.”

  — Laura Munson, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of This Is Not the Story You Think It Is and Willa’s Grove

• “Sister Angeline is a character for the ages. Anna Quinn has created a deeply moving portrait of a great soul at the precipice of faith and duty and the shadows of a wrenching past. It’s beautiful, and like all true beauty, the book is haunting, if not haunted.”

  — Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The Devil’s Highway

• “Angeline is unique: a gripping read filled with darkness and light. Beautiful language and landscape coexist alongside sinister events surrounding a small community of feminist nuns, but despite the shadow of violence and fear, this story is about choosing forgiveness and compassion, and guiding others to healing and love.” 

  — Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of The Perfect Son and The Promise between Us

• “[A] mystical, marvelous tale of love and loss and growth, a story that takes place at the fascinating intersection of twenty-first-century realism and centuries-old faith. The language is pure poetry, and the story is both mysterious and inevitable, terrifying and inspiring. A beautifully plotted novel that will cling to the reader for a very long time.”

  — Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches

• “A compassionate page-turner that is at once a gripping thriller and a deep examination of grief, Anna Quinn’s Angeline takes us from the cloistered halls of a Chicago convent to an island in the Pacific Northwest where a group of remarkable women have created a community on their own terms. Filled with memorable characters and startling events, Angeline illuminates the power of nature, friendship, and self-acceptance to heal the most painful of wounds. Writing with lyricism, grace, and insight, Anna Quinn reminds us of our shared suffering, our shared humanity, and the possibility of transformation even in the darkest of times.”

  — JoAnne Tompkins, bestselling author of What Comes After

• “Quinn is a powerful writer who straddles the depth of despair and the height of joy with grace and beauty. Her story is both lyrical and terrifying, and, for those of us who so desperately want to believe, a breath of fresh air in a world we’re not sure we want to occupy. Angeline is a book to be treasured.”

  — Barbara Conrey, USA Today bestselling author of Nowhere Near Goodbye

• “In prose that shimmers off the page, Anna Quinn takes us inside the life of a progressive convent on an island in the Salish Sea. At the heart of the story is Sister Angeline, who has been dispatched from the shelter of her old convent to seek a spiritual home with a group of radical feminist nuns. But like a tidepool that appears tranquil on the surface, island life soon proves more treacherous than it presents and Angeline’s’ spiritual quest takes a darker turn. She must break through the nested cloisters of her mind and heart to discover that salvation takes many forms. A story that is at once a nuanced journey of forgiveness and a masterfully crafted psychological thriller, Sister Angeline asks us to consider who gets to decide what is moral, what is right and whether there is a difference. ‘Wade into the water with me,’ one of Angeline’s sister nuns asks of her. Quinn asks us to do the same.”

  — Carol Smith, author of Crossing the River: Seven Stories That Saved My Life; A Memoir

• “Through the evocative prose and story that is Anna Quinn’s Angeline, we’re reminded that grief is complex and dynamic and that, sometimes, taking a leap of faith can be the ultimate healing experience. This is the perfect read for anyone who believes in miracles, or wants to believe.”

  — Meg Waite Clayton, internationally bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris

• “This immersive tale will resonate with readers who appreciate compelling characters and lyrical writing.”

  — Booklist

• “Issuing a strong refrain of redemption, Angeline is a novel in which bold and loving nuns move toward a healing future, with or without the approval of the Vatican.”

  — Foreword Reviews

• “An incandescent novel of a young nun’s journey through searing loss, and atonement toward a shimmering redemption. The achingly spare language encapsulates Angeline’s self-negation as well as her singular gifts. A testament to the power of love to transform cruelty and loss into strength and freedom.”

  — Gemma Whelan, author of Painting through the Dark

• “Angeline, Anna Quinn’s second novel, expertly evokes the complexity of our world’s situation in her well-drawn microcosm of life on Beckett Island where Sister Angeline is sent when the Chicago nunnery she has lived in must close. Even there, authoritarian power and misogyny past and present intrude on the peaceful and stirring natural Northwest environment. Sister Angeline’s adaptation to the free-spirited convent will keep you reading to learn what lies at the bottom of acts of violence, against nature, against others, even against one’s own life. Five stars for this novel that speaks compellingly through the heart of a way forward to a better future for us all.”

  — Sheila Bender, author of Since Then: Poems and Short Prose 

• “A poetic, innovative story that portrays the interplay between trauma and memory. Sister Angeline’s narrative reveals how the mind is constantly processing the world around us and the world within us, a dialogue between past and present. This book is a triumph of beauty and human resilience.”

  — Gale Massey, author of The Girl from Blind River  

• “Angeline combines the mystical with millennia-old beliefs and twenty-first-century front-page news. This is a truly lovely novel that develops into an exciting thriller.”

  — Midwest Book Review