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Susan Howatch

Author of Glittering Images

57+ Works 7,622 Members 134 Reviews 31 Favorited

About the Author

Susan Howatch was born on July 14, 1940 in England. She graduated from the University of London in 1961 and served as a law clerk and secretary in the early 1960s before becoming a full-time writer. She writes in a variety of genres, including mystery, romance, and historical fiction. Her books show more include The Dark Shore, April's Grave, Penmarric, and the six-volume Starbridge series. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Susan Howatch

Glittering Images (1987) 766 copies
Penmarric (1971) 761 copies
Cashelmara (1974) 659 copies
The Wheel of Fortune (1984) 561 copies
Glamorous Powers (1988) 529 copies
Ultimate Prizes (1989) 454 copies
Absolute Truths (1994) 436 copies
The Rich Are Different (1977) 431 copies
Mystical Paths (1992) 421 copies
Scandalous Risks (1990) 419 copies
The Wonder Worker (1997) 410 copies
Sins of the Fathers (1980) 367 copies
The High Flyer (1999) 328 copies
The Heartbreaker (2003) 268 copies
The Shrouded Walls (1968) 97 copies
The Dark Shore (1965) 93 copies
The Waiting Sands (1890) 86 copies
Call in the Night (1967) 76 copies
The Devil on Lammas Night (1970) 68 copies
April's Grave (1973) 57 copies
Penmarric [1979 TV series] — Screenwriter — 5 copies
A Susan Howatch treasury (1968) 3 copies
Teuflische Liebe (1978) 1 copy
OMNIBUS (1982) 1 copy
Any 1 copy

Associated Works

The Cruise (1995) — Contributor — 15 copies
Scandalous Truths: Essays By and About Susan Howatch (2005) — Contributor — 4 copies

Tagged

20th century (68) 20th century fiction (27) adult (21) Anglican (46) British (68) British literature (30) Christian (27) Christianity (40) Church of England (116) clergy (58) Cornwall (22) ebook (40) England (126) family (26) family saga (89) fiction (1,125) gothic (31) gothic romance (23) hardcover (24) historical (60) historical fiction (206) Ireland (34) Kindle (94) literature (29) mystery (51) novel (253) own (57) paperback (23) psychology (21) read (64) religion (88) religious fiction (27) romance (78) series (47) spirituality (38) Starbridge (76) Susan Howatch (45) suspense (27) to-read (251) unread (35)

Common Knowledge

Other names
Sturt, Susan Elizabeth
Birthdate
1940-07-14
Gender
female
Nationality
UK
Birthplace
Leatherhead, Surrey, England, UK
Places of residence
Leatherhead, Surrey, England, UK
New York, New York, USA
London, England, UK
Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, UK
Education
King's College, London
Occupations
Writer
Agent
Gillon Aitken Associates Ltd
Short biography
Born Susan Elizabeth Sturt in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, she was the daughter of a stockbroker, and went to school at Sutton High School. She was an only child whose father was killed during World War II, but she has described her childhood as a happy one.

She obtained a degree in law from King's College London in 1961. In 1964, she emigrated to the United States, where she worked as a secretary in New York City. She married Joseph Howatch, a sculptor and writer, that year and began her career as a writer, finding success almost immediately with her intricately detailed gothic novels. A daughter was born to the couple in 1971. Upon separating from her husband in 1975, Howatch returned to England, then lived in the Republic of Ireland from 1976–80 before moving back to England permanently in 1980.

After her latter return to England, Howatch found herself "rich, successful, and living exactly where I wanted to live," but feeling a spiritual emptiness which she ascribed to "trying to hold my divided self together" and questioning her life and what she should do with it.

She had settled in Salisbury out of love for the beauty of the town, but found herself increasingly drawn to Salisbury Cathedral; eventually she began to study Anglican Christianity in earnest. She experienced a spiritual epiphany, and concluded that she should continue to write novels, but to "set forth my discoveries in the light of faith, no matter how feeble and inadequate my beginner's faith was." This personal turning point culminated in Howatch's most successful and popular works, the Starbridge series.

Members

Reviews

Family Saga

Interesting story but some of the plot twists were too unbelievable. Still an interesting bit of historical fiction mostly in Ireland during turbulent and heartbreaking times.
 
Flagged
bschweiger | 18 other reviews | Feb 4, 2024 |
e time is 1940. Jonathan Darrow is an Anglican priest when he receives a shattering vision and knows he must leave the monastery that has been his home for seventeen years. As he plunges into the temptations of the real world, a crisis sends him into the labyrinth of his past to pluck out the buried truth beneath the deceptions he has been living through.

When I picked this up, I thought that there would be a certain approach taken on the narrator's psychic powers, and the initial scene, where he has a vision, added to my belief. How wrong I was!

The main character is a 60 year old widow and father of two who has spent the last 17 years in religious order. The first quarter of the book covers 2 months of discussions with his superior as he tries to leave the order. When he finally does, he travels around a bit, alienates his daughter and (let's face it) homosexual alcoholic son, then gets married to a woman half his age he's only known for 2 months, and gets set up as a local curate.

This book is very heavy on the Christian church process, very wordy, sometimes very heavy. Sometimes his very "deep" discources (e.g. on the afterworld/grief) appear more of a lecture to the reader, and makes his listener (in the above case, his wife), appear to be rather stupid.

I dont believe I completed it, as I struggled to get beyond halfway
… (more)
 
Flagged
nordie | 6 other reviews | Oct 14, 2023 |
692 pages of upperclass Brits behaving badly in Ireland. Not worth the time.
 
Flagged
Gifford_MacShane | 18 other reviews | Mar 30, 2023 |
Clearly the author’s early work: the plotting and pace is good but the gender portrayals will grind for most modern readers: brittle women and chauvinistic men without much reflection on that, which is odd for works written at the start of second wave feminism.
 
Flagged
SuzieD | Jan 3, 2023 |

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Statistics

Works
57
Also by
2
Members
7,622
Popularity
#3,208
Rating
3.9
Reviews
134
ISBNs
391
Languages
13
Favorited
31

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