Win The Holy Mark by Gregory Alexander
Win The Holy Mark by Gregory Alexander. To enter the contest, fill out the form below between July 3 and July 24. You can listen to an interview with the author at The Writer's Forum here.
The Advocate Magazine just named The Holy Mark one of its "15 Best LGBT Summer Reads."
In The Holy Mark, a disgraced and exiled Catholic priest with a weakness for young men ponders his future and reflects on his twenty-five years in the priesthood.
Anne Rice called Gregory Alexander's debut novel "irresistible and spellbinding." Publishers Weekly declared it "disturbingly memorable." New Orleans' Ambush Weekly praised the book's "skillful exploration of the psychology of the closet."
Father Tony probably should have never been a priest. With his family's money, courtesy of ties to the New Orleans mob, he could have pursued his interest in literature or even worked with young boys—only free of all those silly Church strictures. But there was no priest in the Miggliore family, much to the shame of his immigrant Italian grandmother. So at his birth, when the old woman beheld a peculiar mark on his head and declared it to be a sign from God—a "segno sacro" in the only language she knew—this grandson's destiny was set.
Those marked by God, though, are often marked by men as well: Father Tony's jealous uncle will never forgive him for finding favor with the Miggliore matriarch. And along with his ally, the Archbishop of New Orleans, he'll plot to destroy his nephew if it takes the rest of his life. Meanwhile Father Tony is determined to outwit his enemies, even if he has to conceal his identity and prowl the neighborhoods of New Orleans by night to do it, ministering in his own special way to the youth of the streets.
A shocking novel of family, power, and revenge, The Holy Mark is the story of one reluctant priest caught between the cynicism of his own Southern upbringing and the political machinations of the Roman Catholic Church.
