In this house of Brede

by Rumer Godden · 1969

After World War II, successful civil servant Philippa Talbot abandons her London career and social standing to become a postulant at Brede Abbey, a 130‑year‑old Benedictine convent perched on a hill in Sussex. Within the stone walls she encounters a diverse sisterhood whose lives are marked by quiet devotion, hidden rivalries, deep love, and lingering grief. As Philippa learns the rhythms of prayer, work, and community, she discovers that true peace—Pax—requires both surrender and fierce inner struggle. Amid looming changes in the Catholic Church and the abbey’s financial peril, her faith is tested, her past reshaped, and her purpose refined, offering a moving portrait of a woman who finds herself by losing everything she once knew.