Sister Teresa

Book excerpt: “This brilliant fictional biography of Saint Teresa of Ávila breathes new life into a sacred subject” (Booklist). She is Saint Teresa—known as a mystic, reformer, and founder of convents, and the author of numerous texts that introduced her radical religious ideas and practices to a society suffering through the repressive throes of the Spanish Inquisition. In Bárbara Mujica’s masterful tale, her story—her days of youthful romance, her sensual fits of spiritual rapture, secret heritage as a Jewish convert to Catholicism, cloak-and-dagger political dealings, struggles against sexual blackmail, and mysterious illness—unfolds with a tumultuous urgency. Blending fact with fiction in vivid detail, painstakingly researched and beautifully rendered, Mujica’s tale conjures a brilliant picture of sisterhood, faith, the terror of religious persecution, the miracle of salvation, and of one woman’s challenge to the power of strict orthodoxy, a challenge that consisted of a crime of passion—her own personal relationship with God. “This engaging novel depicts Teresa of Ávila as an extraordinary woman whose visions, church reform ideas and writing may well have been inspired by God . . . Surprisingly light and entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly “A lifelong friend remembers Teresa of Ávila, ‘Spain’s most beloved saint,’ in this richly entertaining historical novel from Mujica . . . An earthy, humanizing portrait.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Mujica brings this tumultuous time in history to vivid life. A very interesting and compelling novel which focuses more on Teresa’s entire life rather than simply her religion.” —Historical Novel Society