18 May As The Morning Rising

“In this riveting deep-dive into convent life, Mary Frances Coady unlocks the grille and ushers readers into the intimate world of nuns struggling to negotiate the upheaval within the Catholic Church in the sixties.”— Phyllis Rudin, author of Tucked Away

“Coady expertly brings us into a clandestine, mystery-filled world peopled by women struggling to find grace in the limits of duty-bound lives. As the Morning Rising deftly explores the effects of social change on a sub- culture few of us understand.”— Barry Webster, author of The Lava in My Bones

“As the Morning Rising offers a fascinating view into lives often over-looked. Alone in community, Coady’s nuns long for meaning and even freedom in the midst of a transforming world. A fierce and tender novel about the women inside the habit, their seeking minds and striving souls.” — Alissa York, author of Far Cry

“Mary Frances Coady’s novel, As the Morning Rising, ventures into the obscure and little known world of a community of Roman Catholic nuns. They run St. Monica’s, a private school for girls….It is the 60’s, and…through the eyes of Sister Alphonsine and her fellow nuns, the reader navigates the bewildering and emerging world of liberation theology and its impacts. Steeped in monastic traditions and the Holy Rule, their lives are being upended….” — Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes, poet, former nun, and author of Dark Water Songs

“This book is a master class in character development. The temperament of each nun is well crafted. The individual nuns, whether compliant or
rebellious, struggle in their own way with the changes.….The novel is about community, sisterhood and resilience. The community’s transformations happened to be in a convent, but each individual nun’s experience could be that of any woman, anywhere.” — Catherine Walker, author of A Watch of Nightingales