Kathryn Haynes

When, Birdie, fragile teenager with an overactive imagination is placed in an isolated Midwestern convent on the brink of closure, her strange and in some cases grotesque obsessions begin to consume her attention. Outside life beckons when she meets Julia, the confident, spirited maintenance girl, inspiring a growing infatuation. But privately, Birdie can’t turn away from her fascination with the gory and whimsical hallucinations that plague her. Birdie sets off on her spiritual quest to discover if the source of her visions is something saintly or a dark heresy. The convent itself holds ghosts of nuns who’ve met untimely deaths. Are they calling Birdie to the same fate?

A bold portrait of misguided youth as they learn the cruelties of life in the American Midwest.