New baby and new books!

In my first day in the office after giving birth to little Irene Margaret (born April 4th, pictured above), I found two new books waiting for me which I wanted to share with Chesterton Press fans. SOMEDAY is a timely thriller in novella form by British Catholic YA author Corinna Turner.

Two years ago today, 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria were kidnapped by radical Islamists. The whereabouts of most of them are still unknown. Lest the world forget and move on, Corinna Turner, partnering with Aid to the Church in Need, has retold the story in modern Britain, giving a twist to the story, making it surprisingly relevant and inspiring. The best part is that all proceeds from sale of SOMEDAY go to Aid to the Church in Need, which ministers to persecuted Christians worldwide. Also available in Kindle and eBook formats: and if you buy the hard copy, you can get the ebook for free.

The second book is my first non-fiction, No Longer Strangers: The First 40 Years of Franciscan University Households, written with Fr. Gregory Plow, TOR. Why do we Christians need community? Why is the "small group" an essential part of human life? How does community help to ground us as human persons? How does it affect our spiritual life? This history of the implementation of student "households" at my alma mater, Franciscan University looks at these questions in context of the real-life campus-wide experiment begun by Fr. Michael Scanlan in 1974-5 and how the concept has developed and changed over the course of 40 years.

Anyone interested in the concept of Christian community, at the parish level or in some other form, will find this book fascinating.  How it helped bring about a revival of faith on a dying college campus is a story both miraculous and instructive. You can find both at ChestertonPress.com.