When my dear author friend Rachel Yarworth asked me to be part of the book tour for her first work of fiction, The Doubting Vicar’s Book Club, I was delighted, because I always love Rachel’s writing and have very much enjoyed her non-fiction works, Friend of God and Finding Jesus in the Wilderness. I’m so pleased Rachel has ventured into fiction writing!
The Doubting Vicar’s Book Club is an uplifting cosy contemporary fiction novel about friendship, found family, and second chances, set in a sleepy village where four strangers meet and a simple book club changes their lives.
It’s built around Patrick, a vicar who has been struggling with doubt and the feeling that he is going through the motions with dry religion. He accidentally starts a book club when he ends up in the pub one night, feeling uncertain about his place as a vicar and his life with God. Other characters join him in the next days and weeks: Anne, who cares for her elderly mother who has Alzheimers; Phoenix, who runs a local wildlife hospital and is secretly struggling with past trauma; Geoffrey, who is grieving the loss of his wife and is angry at the world and at God, despite the fact that he doesn’t even believe in God. Other characters join too, but the narrative is mostly based around these central four, with switches between their points of view.
It looks like a cosy book club read — and it is — but there’s depth in it too that will remain with you after reading. The book explores themes of grief, doubt, anger, and the harm humans can do to one another that causes deep scars. I love that Rachel is not trying to give easy answers here or say that becoming a Christian will immediately make life easier and everyone will live happily ever after. Instead, she writes with gentle nuance and understanding of what it means to be human. For example, when Patrick is talking to someone who has been bereaved, he reflects that he doesn’t have the answers, and that assurances he might have once offered seem crass, too polished, and inauthentic. He battles with his own sense of calling as he wonders what words he can bring to such a raw situation, along with struggling with an inner voice resulting from harsh criticism he received in the past when training as a priest. He doesn’t try to fluff over his doubt or his feeling that heaven is silent, and I find this particularly helpful because so many of us experience these kinds of seasons in our lives. I certainly have.
There’s a stream of deep kindness running through this book. It’s a character-driven, gentle tale, ideal for curling up by the fire on these winter evenings and immersing ourselves in the lives of normal people facing normal things with courage and strength. Faith is proclaimed throughout the book, both implicitly through actions and more outwardly through words. Characters who are finding life hard for so many reasons find themselves belonging to something greater, and in their little book club they discover a taste of life in all its fullness.
If you love warm contemporary stories about unlikely friendships and God working in messy humanity you’ll want to pick this up. It’s good to see a book like this for the UK Christian market — we so need stories that remind readers of God’s love for them and their value as God’s children.
Rachel kindly answered a few questions about the book:
It’s great to see a ‘cosy book club’ story for the Christian market. What gave you the idea for the book?
My brother asked me when I was going to write a novel, so I asked God to give me the idea, and He showed me the four main characters in a dream. I love the way stories can communicate truth in a very gentle and accessible way, so was delighted to explore that genre.
Tell us a bit about your writing process. You’ve always written non-fiction and devotional works up to now, so how did you find the process of writing fiction?
I really enjoyed it. There’s something very freeing about letting your imagination flow unhindered. Obviously writing is still a craft that requires hard work, but I loved hanging out with the imaginary characters in my head and following their stories.
Tell us a bit about your heart behind the story and what you’d love readers to take away from it.
I suppose the primary message is the same as that in all my non-fiction books too: that God is far more interested in friendship with us than some sense of religious performance. But I also wanted to explore the blessing of the friendships He sends, and would love readers to come away with a real sense of hope and warmth.
Will you be writing more fiction in the future? Do you have any ideas to build on?
I would love to! I do have an idea for a sequel, in terms of the possible challenges they may face next, but at the moment I’m taking a much needed rest, and waiting to see if I feel a green light to get writing again. Watch this space!
Thanks, Rachel! You can get hold of The Doubting Vicar’s Book Club at Broad Place Publishing or on other online bookstores.