Peccavi

A clergyman's secret sin unravels his entire world in this gripping Victorian drama. The Rev. Robert Carlton, rector of the quiet parish of Long Stow, carries a burden that grows heavier as his congregation's suspicion turns to hostility, and his patron's favor curdles into contempt. Under English ecclesiastical law's ancient right of advowson, powerful men once controlled church appointments with near-absolute authority, but they could not simply cast out a clergyman. That power belonged to the bishop alone. Hornung builds tension through the machinery of religious institution and social exile, exploring what happens when a man of God must face the consequences of his transgression among those he was meant to shepherd. The novel asks an uncomfortable question: can a sinner's atonement ever be enough when the world has already pronounced judgment?