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The Choir
The Choir
Nov 28, 2025 11:34 PM

Author:Joanna Trollope

The Choir

Lose yourself in this absorbing and touching novel about change and the challenge to accept it from multi-million copy bestselling author Joanna Trollope. Beautifully written with exquisitely drawn characters and demonstrating a superb ability to understand people and relationships, it is perfect for readers of Elizabeth Noble, Erica James and Amanda Prowse.

'A beautifully drawn portrait of Cathedral life' -- Sunday Express

'A modern Barchester Chronicle' -- Sunday Telegraph

'Richly satisfying' -- Evening Standard

'Another wonderful book, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Joanna Trollope never disappoints' -- ***** Reader review

'Another tour de force by Trollope' -- ***** Reader review

'One of those stories that stay with you' -- ***** Reader review

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ONLY A MIRACLE CAN UNITE A CONGREGATION IN TURMOIL...

In the gentle precinct of Aldminster Cathedral, crisis looms.

The urbane and worldly Dean wants nothing so much as to restore and beautify his beloved Cathedral - even if it means sacrificing the Choir School to pay for it.

Alexander Troy, Headmaster of the school, a conscientious man, is determined that nothing and no-one - certainly not the overbearing Dean - should destroy the Choir.

As the rift widens to take on immense dimensions, many others find themselves caught in the schism - Leo Beckford, brilliant but wayward organist, repelling the adoration of the Dean's dreadful daughter; the gentle, left-wing Bishop, trying to soothe the angry protagonists; Sally Ashworth, mother of the leading chorister, fighting loneliness and an erring and absent husband...

Each frail and human dilemma takes its part in the greater turmoil of Chapter and Close and the final battle for the survival of the Choir.

Reviews

'A beautifully drawn portrait of Cathedral life'

—— Sunday Express

'One of the most interesting writers to have emerged in the past few years'

—— Carla McKay , Daily Mail

'A modern Barchester Chronicle'

—— Sunday Telegraph

'Richly satisfying'

—— Evening Standard

Its questions about marriage and eroticism, grief and the frightening blankness of nature, have made it one of our century's most popular novels

—— Financial Times

Absorbing, uplifting and truly impressive

—— Daily Express

This is a great story...Malouf's beautiful language puts fresh flesh on to these ancient characters

—— Claire Allfree , Metro

Few writers possess the natural lyric grace of Malouf

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

Malouf's poetic yet muscular prose is wonderful

—— Ronald Wright , Times Literary Supplement

A marvel- beautifully written, surprisingly moving, quietly rather brilliant

—— Harry Ritchie , Daily Mail

While Malouf's chief interest is in the human impulses that lie behind the epic deeds, he remains faithful to the beliefs and values of the ancient world

—— Edmund Gordon , Times Literary Supplement

immensely moving, modern novel

—— Elizabeth Speller , Independent

A dignified performance ... in writing this novel Malouf is honouring a great work and also making a great work of his own ... his graceful fiction deals in truth and is always beautiful

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

Beautifully written and very moving, Ransom is a reimagining that respects Homer's original while expanding expertly on its themes.

—— Alastair Mabbott , Herald

Malouf captures the moving humanity of Priam's grief

—— Robert Collins , Sunday Times

Lyrical reworking of the final scenes of The Iliad

—— Metro

This superb novel goes by in a heartbeat, so smooth and engrossing is David Malouf's prose...It is a touching tale, full of pain, but rendered beautifully by Malouf's humanity

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

An audacious reworking of Homer's Iliad.

—— Holly Kyte , Sunday Telegraph

David Malouf...has given Homer's epic fresh life in this haunting mood piece...a graceful, eloquent text dominated by rage and sorrow

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

This novel explores the timeless motifs of epic, in miniature

—— The Times

You know it ends in death, and so do Malouf's haunted protagonists, but this telling, at once unfussy and wonderfully poetic, breathes warm life into a great epic

—— James Smart , Guardian

Breathtaking skill...an extraordinary emotional charge.

—— Colm Toibin , Guardian, Christmas round up

A finely honed, writerly and wise revisiting of one of the most famous episodes in The Iliad, when Priam the King of Troy goes to bring home the body of his dead son Hector. No-one in prose has managed to better Malouf's imaginative recreation of the Homeric world.

—— Robert Crawford , Sunday Herald, Christmas round up

a potent new yarn... Beautifully written in simple language freighted with meaning, Ransom explores a king's impulse to act as a mourning father.

—— James Urquhart , Financial Times
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