Product Description

Jan Karon's millions of fans can't wait to sit down with her heartwarming and hilarious characters, who have a way of becoming family. In A New Song, Mitford's longtime Episcopal priest, Father Tim, retires. However, new challenges and adventures await when he agrees to serve as interim minister of a small church on Whitecap Island. He and his wife, Cynthia, soon find that Whitecap has its own unforgettable characters: a church organist with a mysterious past, a lovelorn bachelor placing personal ads, a mother battling paralyzing depression. They also find that Mitford is never far away when circumstances "back home" keep their phone ringing off the hook. In this fifth novel of the beloved series, fans old and new will discover that a trip to Mitford and Whitecap is twice as good for the soul. "Everything that, in the wee hours of the night, you like a book to be, warm-hearted and funny, with a hero marked by . . . profound inner strength" --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Mitford isn't a journey but a destination."-- The Denver Post

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21707 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-01
• Released on: 2000-04-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 5
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140270594
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
As if being a priest in this day and age isn't difficult enough, try shepherding two parishes, located hundreds of miles apart, at the same time. A predicament of biblical proportions indeed, but one the indomitable Father Tim Kavanaugh and his cheerful wife, Cynthia, can handle, with a little help from the Lord--not to mention their friends--in Jan Karon's A New Song, the fifth installment in her much-loved Mitford series. When asked to act as interim minister for a tiny island parish in North Carolina's Outer Banks, the recently retired Father heeds the call, all the while trusting in a divine master plan: "He had prayed that God would send him wherever He pleased, and when his bishop presented the idea of Whitecap, he knew it wasn't his bishop's bright idea at all, but God's."

From the more routine duties of settling into a new church to dealing with a number of deeper domestic issues--including a single mother's spiral into depression and a reclusive next door neighbor in need of kindness--Father Tim's new parish presents a welcome challenge. All the while, of course, the folks back home keep him informed of goings-on in Mitford--the biggest being the recent arrest of Dooley Barlowe, a mountain boy whom Father Tim had taken into his home and heart five years earlier. As in past Mitford episodes, things have a way of working themselves out, but not before Father Tim and his accompanying cast learn a few more valuable lessons about life. Full of the homey atmosphere and heartwarming truths--not to mention the endearingly quirky characters--that are Karon's trademark, A New Song is a delightful celebration of the communal ties that bind. --Stefanie Hargreaves

From Publishers Weekly
Karon reads the fifth installment of her popular Mitford series with gentle authority, nimble in her Southern enunciation and the depiction of colorful local characters (the four previous titles are available on tape, with the author at the microphone). She is very good at establishing mood, eliciting the nuances of time and place in the life of Father Tim Kavanagh, the recently retired Episcopal minister of this postcard-perfect North Carolina small town. He and Cynthia, his devoted wife, are moving to the coastal island of Whitecap for a year, where he is to preside as interim minister at a small church. Kavanagh is acutely sensitive to the "upheaval" of the "tearing up and nailing down" required by the temporary move. He feels homesick and is nagged with fear, especially as he learns that his adopted teenage son, Dooley, has landed in jail back home. And that's just the beginning of his troubles. Because Kavanagh's life unfolds episodicallyAand always in unexpected waysAit translates especially keenly as audio drama. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover. (Apr.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In this fifth entry in the Mitford series (Out to Canaan, LJ 5/1/97), Father Tim Kavanagh heads for the islands to serve as an interim priest. Although most of the book takes place in his new parish, fans of Mitford's eccentric citizens are not left bereft. Frequent bulletins keep Father Tim up-to-date as well as worried about his former flock. While juggling news of mysterious thefts, the arrest of his adopted son, Dooley, and fights over historic properties, he also must deal with congregational squabbles, being a foster parent to an active three-year-old, surviving a terrible storm, and bringing a lonely man out of decades of solitude. As usual, Father Tim handles it all with the generous faith and soul-healing warmth that has made Karon's books popular in public libraries and best sellers for Christian book stores.
-AJan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., NC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Another excellent story by Karon
The Mitford books, and now a Whitecap book, have been a surprising and wonderful stroll through a different layer of life than most people experience -- or at least take note of. A New Song continues a great tradition. Everybody knew from the beginning who took the bronze statue, but it was a very moving chapter when it was resolved, even if one is a little dumbfounded that Fr. Tim didn't figure out who took it. My questions: So is it in bk 6 or 7 that Lace and Dooley make it to the altar? Will Dooley's birth father be there? Will Buck punch him out? Will Morris be the organist? Will Fr. Tim be there, or will he (or Cynthia) have gone home (could we stand the poignancy)? Thanks for the great and fresh spiritual writing, Jan Karon. And thanks even more to my own mother, for sharing this series with me.

Homesick for Mitford
Having always been a homebody, I identified right away with Father Tim & Cynthia when they left their precious Mitford to go to Whitecap. What an adventure they had. I enjoyed every sentence of this book. Are there really people like Father Tim and Cynthia in this world? How I wish I could be their friend and neighbor. I gleaned scriptural knowledge and human knowledge from all of Jan's Mitford books. The ending of"A New Song" has me baffled indeed. Who is the man in the pearly white shirt? Could it be an angel perhaps? I will sit and sleep restlessly waiting for Jan's next book.

White Cap Island here I come
This book was recommended by a friend and from the first page I was hooked. I moved right along with the rector and his wife and loved their new parish and missed their old one even though I hadn't met the folks in Mitford. I felt like I had been a part of their lives since the beginning. Ms. Karon draws you into the goings on and by the books end you want to know more about your friends.