Vatican Waltz Audiobook

The new novel from the award-winning author of Golfing with God and Revere Beach Boulevard is the story of a young Catholic woman jolted from a quietly devout life in Boston by a miraculous call to action.

Cynthia Piantedosi lives a quiet, unassuming life with her elderly father just outside of Boston. When she loses her beloved grandmother as a child, her faith takes a turn for the devout, and she begins experiencing what she describes as "spells"—moments of such intense prayer that she loses herself. Uninterested in boys and a social life, she develops a deep friendship with the parish priest, whose ideas are often seen as too provocative by his congregation but who encourages her to explore her spells. When he dies in a suspicious hit-and-run accident, the spells intensify, and their message begins to take shape: God is asking her to be the first female Catholic priest. She reaches out to other unreceptive officials within the Catholic establishment and is met with ridicule. Unable to tune out the divine messages, she leaves behind all that she knows, letting the power of her unswerving faith drive her all the way to the Vatican in pursuit of a destiny she doesn't fully understand—and a turn of events that will rock the church to its foundation.

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“The real drama here is in the heroine’s relationship with God—and secular-minded readers who think such matters don’t interest them will think again if they give half a chance to Merullo’s loving portrait of a quiet, unassuming woman impelled by faith into deeper engagement with sorrowful, suffering humanity. A fresh, moving portrait of religion as it could and should be. The cliffhanging finale offers hope that we will see more of Cynthia’s odyssey in future books.”

— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)