The Bell House

by RuthHamilton (Author)

• Used

  Mass Market Paperback
  2005

  $3.25

  Madeleine Horrocks, pretty and outspoken despite her strict 1950s Catholic upbringing, doesn't understand why religion seems to force people apart. Surely, she would argue to her friend Amy, believing in God should be all about love and forgiveness, not hatred?But Amy has been brought up to believe that mixing with other religions results in eternal damnation, and when Maddy becomes friendly with George, the good-looking Jewish boy who lives nearby, Amy fears the worst. But as they grow up she, too, becomes friends with George, as well as with other young teenagers who meet secretly at the Bell House, an ancient place of burial. When a body is found in the nearby reservoir they all become threatened by tragedy and danger. Father Sheahan, the whisky-soaked priest from the local church, has meanwhile discovered that his secret past is catching up with him.Bigotry, lust and hatred have been so much a part of this community that it takes the combined forces of young and old - and particularly George's formidable grandmother Yuspeh - to make everything right again.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $3.25

  Madeleine Horrocks wanted nothing more than to be famous. Pretty and outspoken, she often alarmed her best friend Amy by expressing doubts - about parents, teachers and, most of all, religion, which according to their strict 1950s Catholic upbringing in Rivington Cross seemed certain, Amy thought, to send them both to Hell. What, after all, was wrong with being a Protestant, Madeleine would ask? Or a Jew? The good-looking boy they both noticed on their way to school was, it was rumoured, Jewish - his family having fled from Poland at the beginning of the war. Father Sheahan, the whiskey-soaked priest from the local church, had discovered that his secret past was catching up with him, and went in fear of his life. Amy, too, had a secret - a secret which caused her to visit the Bell House, an ancient charnel house outside the village. As they grow up, this place of death becomes a meeting place for the friends, who have to learn that differences in religion can cause unexpected heartache.