The Convent A Novel [Hardcover]

The crumbling convent of Our Lady of Mercy stands alone in an uninhabited part of the Spanish sierra, hidden on a hill among dense forest. Its inhabitants are devoted to God, to solitude and silencesix women cut off from a world they've chosen to leave behind. This all changes on the day that Mother Superior Maria Ines discovers a suitcase punctured with air holes at the entrance to the retreat: a baby, abandoned to its fate. Is it a miracle? Soon she will find that the baby's arrival has consequences beyond her imagining, and that even in her carefully protected sanctuary she is unable to keep the world, or her past, at bay.Starred Review. A haunting and psychologically dense novel.Karnezis slowly peels back the psychological layers while maintaining a sense of spiritual dread, even as it becomes increasingly obvious that the explanation for where the infant came from is the most earthly one possible. An impressive addition to the works of a master storyteller.