Daffodils in the Churchyard

The novel tells a story of two individuals from completely different backgrounds, a black widow and a white priest, together they are confronted by their indelible emotions in a religious setting and the conventions of the society stand between everything they do to appease their desires. A libertine style novel, set in 1957 in SophiaTown, Stella is a widowed single mother of two boys and the new caretaker of St Gideon Catholic church. The departure of the presiding priest leads to uncertainty in the parish, the mood becomes tense and what follows is a limbo of faith until a young American priest arrives to take over father Martins, a highly regarded priest who has been with St Gideon for over 15 years. The arrival of Alexandra Ambrose changes the course of things, there is scepticism among the people of the church but just in time he wins over the hearts of many including that of Stella but in an unexpected way. From being a lonely mother, Stella becomes a close companion of the priest who fights to stay true to his vow of celibacy but engages with her in new and intriguing sexual ways. As the story reaches climax his dark past threatens to surface. Alexandra Ambrose is an American former soldier who served in the Korean War in the early 1950s and after experiencing the tragedies of war he commits himself to religion and undergoes training at a Convent in San Paolo, Brazil where his desires of youth are tested to the limit by Samantha Kaufmann, a German Theology scholar who is wild and capricious. She takes him on emotional roller coasters and sexual teases and tirelessly tests his devotion to joining the priesthood. Samantha enjoys tempting young boys under going training to become priests at the Convent and after she strikes a relationship with Alexandra things take an unexpected turn. The liaison ends badly when one of the girls in the Convent commits suicide leaving a mysterious note that might implicate Alexandra. Now older, a priest in South Africa, far away from home and his comfort zone, all he has are memories that haunt him and a past he has to keep buried.