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Small Miracles
Small Miracles
Feb 16, 2026 5:34 AM

Author:Anne Booth

Small Miracles

'Charming, witty and warm, Small Miracles is a gentle gem of a novel, a cheery balm in troubling times.' AJ Pearce, bestselling author of Dear Mrs Bird

In the summer of 1995, three nuns play the lottery to save their failing convent and set off on an adventure to Italy in search of a miracle. A joyful, heart-warming story of friendship, community, faith and love.

The 1990s are proving tough for the convent. The order of the Sisters of Saint Philomena is down to its three last nuns. The place that Sisters Margaret, Bridget and Cecilia call home is in dire need of repairs and, with no savings and no new recruits, they are facing the prospect of having to sell up and leave behind the friends and neighbours in the parish community that they love.

That is, until ninety-year-old Cecilia decides to play the newly launched National Lottery and a series of small miracles begins to unfold...

Small Miracles takes the reader on a joyful and uplifting journey as these three unforgettable nuns learn more about life, love and friendship than they could ever have imagined.

***Sweet Mercies, the new Christmas adventure with the Sisters of Saint Philomena, is available for pre-order now!***

Reviews

With gentle humour, and surprising twists and turns, this is just the book we need in these difficult times. I didn't want it to end.

—— Katie Fforde

Charming, witty and warm, Small Miracles is a gentle gem of a novel, a cheery balm in troubling times

—— AJ Pearce, bestselling author of Dear Mrs Bird

Heart-warming and quirky, with a cast of lovable characters...Just wonderful. I loved it.

—— Jill Mansell

Charming, witty and intricately plotted...celebrates the uplifting power of love

—— The Tablet

What a joy! Small Miracles is warm, compassionate, and sees the good in everyone. I loved it, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to be reminded of what a kind place the world can be.

—— Stephanie Butland

I want to be in the kitchen with Sister Bridget cooking up a storm! We should all learn to follow our hearts and find what we love, and be thankful for those we love. This book is a joyful celebration of love.

—— Jo Thomas

A warm hug of a book: gently funny, compassionate and kind. Exactly what we're all craving right now.

—— Shelley Harris

I didn't want this book to end. Full of small everyday miracles and big love.

—— Jenny Bayliss

Rooted in historical events, the novel follows four unforgettable characters finding their way amidst the violence and turmoil, striving to live and not just survive. So gorgeous and oh so very timely.

—— Literary Hub

A fully immersive experience that's perfect for a winter read.

—— Cosmopolitan, Best Historical Fiction Novels of the year

The sort of ambitious debut novel that makes you sit up and take notice... announces an exciting new voice in fiction.

—— The Chicago Review of Books

Pickhart's characters are rich and real, flawed and scared, brave and noble. They betray and they are betrayed, sexually and politically and in every other way... By telling stories of those who live in history but refuse to fully succumb to it, Pickhart recuperates the humanity of the people of Ukraine and celebrates their lives as human beings, not as footnotes to someone else's history.

—— Necessary Fiction

Since 1991, Ukraine has experienced three revolutions, and Pickhart elegantly captures how these events build up inside a person, giving many Ukrainians an acute awareness of the self as both agent and consequence of history.

—— Sonya Bilocerkowycz, author of On Our Way Home from the Revolution

Innovative, emotionally resonant, and deeply affecting, this is a more-than-promising debut from a very talented writer.

—— Kirkus, Starred review

Brilliant... A heart-racing, heart-wrenching stunner that sizzles, with complex questions floating under the thrilling story. This is a novel not to be missed

—— Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored People

The Furrows is a triumph, a book that succeeds brilliantly in reconfiguring and retuning itself in pursuit of its essential subject. In this novel of grief, time flows, stretches, collapses, bends, stutters, and echoes, responsive, as it must be, to loss. Namwali Serpell narrates with an acute awareness of what resists and eludes conventional narration, producing a story that is wonderfully unpredictable, arresting, haunting

—— Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man

If The Old Drift was an epic effort to outdo Marquez and Rushdie, this slippery yet admirably controlled novel aspires to outdo Toni Morrison, and it earns the comparison. It's deeply worthy of rereading and debate. Stylistically refreshing and emotionally intense, cementing Serpell's place among the best writers going

—— Kirkus

[Serpell captures] the child's-eye perspective with great flair...along with the secrecy and judgement of the adult world

—— Times Literary Supplement

An endlessly innovative and deeply moving exploration of grief and family

—— White Review, *Books of the Year*

Highly accomplished

—— London Review of Books

Nutshell was…a pleasure to read… [It’s] very funny.

—— Keith Miller , Literary Review

McEwan, whose prose is always exquisite, is best known for Amsterdam, Atonement and Saturday. His Nutshell is a stunt, but a gorgeous one, studded with Joycean reflections on fathers, the wisdom of pop songs and reviews of placenta-filtered fine wine.

—— Mail Online

Perhaps you’ve got to read it to believe it? That’s certainly what I urge. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

—— Lucy Scholes , National

Nutshell features the novelist at his best, combining the unsettling morbidity of his early works with the wit and depth of his later publications… It is comforting to know too that McEwan, one of the great writers of his generation, part of the defining clique of his time, continues to carve his talents into jewels 40 years on.

—— Simon Leser , Culture Trip

[McEwan] spins this gripping yarn in his usual sublime prose, sprinkled with the blackest of comic relief… The only criticism one could level at this slender beauty is that it’s over all too soon.

—— UK Press Syndication

This, McEwan’s fourteenth novel, proves once again that he is a writer finely attuned to how the heart beats. He knows how to make his reader feel entertained, happy, and sad, all within twenty pages – an expert in the craft of the sad smile, so to speak… Be assured – you don’t have to be a fan of the play to read this novel; it is a pleasure in its own right.

—— Cornelius Dieckmann , Varsity

It has a great concept and a brilliant opening… I love the way the wisecracking narrator…picks up information about the world… It shows what can be done with the form, that there are still new ways to experiment.

—— Paul Morley , Metro

Possibly the most unusual crime book of the year. A witty and suspenseful story told from inside a mother's womb.

—— Lovereading

It's an intriguing set-up, and one that allows McEwan to do what he's good at. The crime is deftly charted, expertly paced. Much of the writing is lean and queasily vivid.

—— Orlando Bloom , Irish Independent

McEwan is even more brilliant when turning his pen to wry humour and satire… An intelligent social satire.

—— Juanita Coulson , Lady

A classic tale of murder and deceit.

—— Choice Magazine

[It’s] incredibly brave and only one of our greatest authors could pull it off. He does, with aplomb. The sheer command of language and confidence with prose is a tutorial for us lesser authors.

—— Jeffrey Archer , Daily Mail

This dark, clever tale is among the best of McEwan’s newer novels.

—— Laura Powell , Sunday Telegraph, Book of the Year

[Nutshell is] hilarious and compelling… [A] ripping, gripping yarn – narrative velcro.

—— Craig Raine , Spectator, Book of the Year

McEwan is on top form… Social satire that wears its learning lightly

—— Lady, Book of the Year

[A] brilliant novel… A tour de force in language and literary intrigue.

—— Brad Davies , i, Book of the Year

A book pulsing with hilarious and brainy brio… He simultaneously spoofs crime fiction and finds a novel mouthpiece for a mordantly entertaining and exhilaratingly intelligent commentary on the modern world.

—— Peter Kemp , Sunday Times, Book of the Year

A comic tale… It is a masterpiece.

—— Fiona Wilson , The Times, Book of the Year

[A] wonderful new novel.

—— Catherine Nixey , The Times

By turns, funny, shocking and compelling. But the writing is so clever and beautiful. I could read it again and again.

—— Nick Clegg , Mail on Sunday

The voice of its narrator, a foetus, is splendidly sardonic.

—— Quentin Letts , Daily Mail, Book of the Year

Not only does he pull it off, he does so triumphantly, in the cleverest book I’ve read this year. It’s smart, dark and at times very funny.

—— Jonathan Pugh , Daily Mail, Book of the Year

A saucy, claustrophobic and darkly funny story which is all rather peculiar. Compulsive reading.

—— Henry Deedes , Daily Mail, Book of the Year

I devoured Ian McEwan’s latest very funny spin on Hamlet.

—— Sarah Crossan , Irish Times, Book of the Year

An ingenious rewrite of Hamlet as a murder story in which a foetus is detective and possible victim.

—— Mark Lawson , Guardian, Book of the Year

This is McEwan at his most playfully provocative.

—— Irish Independent, Book of the Year

A clever conceit, elegantly wrought, economically constructed.

—— Tablet, Book of the Year

A bewitching ode to humanity’s beauty, longing and selfishness.

—— Irish Mail on Sunday, Book of the Year

A gripping piece of fiction.

—— Accounting Web UK, Book of the Year

I was hooked from the first page.

—— David Murphy , Irish Independent, Book of the Year

[A] smart, eloquent novel.

—— World of Cruising, Book of the Year

A enthralling read from one of the world’s master storytellers.

—— Helen Brown , Absolutely London

McEwan delights with lyrical prose that is fittingly poetic.

—— Ed Butterfield , The Boar

[A] work which both fascinates and disturbs through its unique perspective on a malicious death… Every sentence is a joy to behold, a gift to the reader of delicately considered prose, and thoughtful observations… Alongside its edgy and entertaining narration, and perhaps in part because of it, the novel manages to challenge all preconceptions of the crime genre, upending the whodunit into an extraordinary will-they-do-it… By nature, Nutshell is a novel which perplexes, entertains, and moves the reader in equal turn, all with McEwan’s startling attention to detail, and luxuriant prose style. Read it for its peculiar narrator, read it for the rapidly-changing and intense emotions, or read it just for the thrill of chase as the killing comes to fruition; whatever intrigues you about this novel, just make sure that you do read it – and feel the thrill for yourself.

—— Eli Holden , Oxford Student

Brilliantly realised… Any book so bound up in a conceit and in its own verbal fireworks at times runs the risk of being a bit clever-clever. But on the whole we accept in a suspension of disbelief the foetus’s pompous mastery of language and imagery and abandon ourselves to the sheer eloquent pleasure of this hilarious romp.

—— Liza Cox , Totally Dublin

Short, odd but pleasurable… Great fun, and very well written.

—— i

Rich in Shakespearean allusion, this is McEwan on dazzling form.

—— Mail on Sunday

Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.

—— Silversurfers

Ian McEwan’s brilliance as a stylist and surprise plotter finds a fitting subject in Nutshell…, which is Hamlet as told from inside the womb. Up there with his best.

—— Melvyn Bragg , New Statesman

A gripping tale is told with breathtaking skill, turbocharged with rage against the madness and despair of our modern world.

—— Guto Harri , The Tablet

Nutshell is one of those books you sit down to read and don’t get up until you’ve finished. It is brilliantly executed and full of surprises; original, clever and witty. Simply a must-read

—— Kalwant Bhopal , Times Higher Education

A book I couldn’t put down… brilliantly clever

—— Nadav Kander , Observer
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