Young Brother Cyril is devastated.

He’s right at the start of his monastic life. Everything looked so promising, but now it’s all been ruined by one glib, unthinking remark. He will be a laughing stock forever. What can he do to restore his self-esteem?

Then he has his glorious idea. He decides to write a book about the monks of his community, asking each about the purpose and direction of their lives.

Threading through Brother Cyril’s conversations with the brothers of St Alcuins Abbey, however, are some of the stories that can never be written — stories of the heart, and of private and personal struggle — like Brother Felix wrestling with scrupulosity and shame, or Father Francis deciding to lay down what meant so much to him.

On the way, Brother Cyril learns more than he expected. What begins as an attempt to prove his own worth becomes, in the end, a book of gratitude.

Brother Cyril’s Book is the second volume in the second series of The Hawk and the Dove novels. It follows on from This Brother of Yours. The stories follow a sequence, but each can be read individually.