Spreading Wings
A sequential novel. The evolution of Crooked Wings.
by
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On August the 15th, Assumption Day, the Virgin Mary is said to have left the earth to be welcomed into heaven. Whether this really happened or not has been hotly debated for centuries by theologians and skeptics, scholars and ecclesiasts, but nonetheless it is the most popular day in the year for pilgrims to visit the holy site of Lourdes, deep in the French Pyrenees. Ever since Saint Bernadette had her visions, the recurring apparition of the Virgin, and the advent of the holy spring waters, in 1858, pursuers of the miraculous have converged en masse. From all over the world they come by the busload and the planeload, bringing their hopes, their prayers, their faith and their invalids. Every seedy hotel crammed into the steep valley is packed with voluble Italians, humble Indians and disdainful French doyennes of a certain age. The broad plaza that faces the grotto of the Virgin throngs with the full panoply of Christian humanity. Waves of pilgrims, clutching bibles and souvenir plastic bottles in the shape of the Virgin, pushing wheelchairs and gurneys, eddy and flow, inwards towards the lines to visit the revered statue, and outwards towards the lines to take a bath in the holy waters.
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About the Book
In Lourdes, on the holy feast day of Assumption, the body of a dead child lies in a pool of blood in front of the statue of the Virgin. Around her stand those who have come to love her, not just as a child, but as a gifted soul, trapped in a disabled body. Their grief at her loss merges with the love that she has awoken in them. Though she is gone, the love that they feel in her presence, grows stronger. Her body returns to the convent of the nuns who came to regard her as their own saint, but at the moment when they are ready to bury her, she lets them know that she is very much still with them. What follows is the evolution of a relationship that began when seekers from different paths converged on a château in Entre Deux Mers, South Western France, and discovered this child held the key to their destiny. What began in "Crooked Wings" now takes flight and like birds losing their fledgling plumage, they learn to spread their wings.
About the Author
Alastair Sharp is an Australian-born writer who lives in Bordeaux, France, except when he sneaks away to his clifftop medieval village in the Lot et Garonne. Writing has been a lifelong vehicle for self expression, where the mot juste joins the forward narrative to create new universes. The mysterious conjunction of elements that become each novel is endlessly nurturing, inspiring and deeply satisfying. Hopefully this is equally so for the reader!