Oh, Susan Howatch, how devilishly entertaining you are. I don't know why I find the Church of England novels so oddly comforting, and indeed sometimes I'm nearly ashamed of how delightful it is to read about members of the clergy screwing up their lives. At any rate, while this wasn't my favorite Howatch novel, it was certainly among the more enjoyable fiction I'd read in awhile. ( )

Fourth in the Starbridge series about ministers in the Church of England in the 20th century.

This book takes place in the 1960s, and is told from the perspective of Venetia, a young woman who falls in love with an older priest. The background of the book is theological debate and argument over the book 'Honest to God' and the ideals of platonic love.

Cleverly intertwined subplots involving characters from previous books, now rather older. Gripping and believable, but rather sordid and depressing in places, too.

Read first in 2000, and loved the series so much I re-read them in 2001. Now slowly working through them again, interspersed with other books... this is probably my least favourite of the series though it's still extremely well-written. ( )

1963 young girl 20's falls in love with married clergyman - "Honest to God" book at that time

Howatch quotes
P. 150 - Parents Inquisitive
Pg. 343 sex most powerful drive known to man
Pg. 359 - like + respect
romantic love later

In 1963, when traditional values are coming under attack, a young woman in her twenties, Venetia Flaxton, becomes disastrously involved with her best friend's father, the powerful, dynamic but ultimately mysterious Dean of Starbridge Cathedral. Yet, as a married man and a senior Churchman, Aysgarth has nothing to offer her but an admiration which spirals out of control into an obsessive love. As Aysgarth begins to take scandalous risks to further their friendship, pressures rise and the dangers multiply. Venetia finds herself trapped in a desperate web of love and lies from which it seems impossible to escape.

I usually like anything from the Starbridge series (Jane Austen meets George MacDonald); however Scandalous Risks felt a little too formulaic and quite dry. If you've read the others, then you know how this one goes. If you haven't, it's the only one in the series told from a non clergy and female perspective. ( )

Bishop John A. T. Robinson's book "Honest to God" was published in 1963 while I was in college. I wasn't entirely aware of what all the commotion was about after the book's publication, but I was certainly aware of the commotion. And that was on this side of the Atlantic. In England it was more of an uproar.

In her 1990 novel "Scandalous Risks," British author Susan Howatch blames "Honest to God," with its attempt to restate Christianity for the modern age, for the collapse of the Church of England to cultural insignificance. Her book attempts to demonstrate what can happen when situational ethics as advocated by Robinson are adopted even by those within the church.

"Scandalous Risks" is the fourth of six novels Howatch wrote about the Church of England in the 20th century. Each novel covers a different period and explores a different person's spiritual crisis. For the first time in "Scandalous Risks," the narrator is a woman and a lay person — Venetia Flaxton, the daughter of a member of the House of Lords and an intelligent young woman with no clear direction in her life and little interest in spiritual matters. However, she does admire Neville Aysgarth (the narrator of "Ultimate Prizes," the third novel in the series), the dean of a nearby cathedral and a friend of her father's she has known since childhood.

Now in her mid-20s, she begins an affair with Aysgarth, who is now in his early 60s and married to a frustrating woman. If they truly love another, can this relationship be wrong? So they ask, echoing Robinson, whose words are quoted throughout the novel. The story takes place soon after "Honest to God's" publication.

Venetia and Aysgarth take "scandalous risks," a phrase repeated throughout the novel with tiresome regularity, and exposure follows, as we all know it will. But after that, redemption.

"Scandalous Risks" is not your typical Christian novel. There's all the sex, for one thing. It may not be very explicit, but there is still more sex than you would find in a novel by Beverly Lewis or Karen Kingsbury. And if you deleted all references to smoking and drinking in the novel, you would have a significantly shorter book. For some devout readers, reading Susan Howatch's novel might seem like a scandalous risk, but it is a risk that will pay off handsomely. ( )