Earth Has No Sorrow

by Michelle Blake

Book Overview

In this sequel to the critically-acclaimed The Tentmaker, Episcopalian priest Lily Connor seeks to find a friend who may be a victim of a vicious hate crime. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399147470
• ISBN13: 9780399147470
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Interesting mystery

Ms. Blake shows more comfort with her characters and plot in this interesting tale of the holocaust and religion in general. The plot is not actually religious, but Ms. Blake, again, uses religious issues and history to bind the plot and characters together very nicely. I especially like the fact she is employing the pscyhic traits of Lily more and look forward to this "twist" in future novels. Lily is a likeable and very human character, but it can be a bit depressing as she tends to not lighten up on herself. It would be nice to see less of this.

An Excellent book for an afternoon read!

Michelle Blake a Harvard Divinity Grad has a keen ability to introduce the reader not only into to the plot of the story but also into the lives of the characters. Her main character Lily Connor is an Episcopalian priest who wearing jeans and cowboy boots shatters the stereotypical image of the "conservative" priest. In this story Lily embarkes on a quest of truth not only about her missing friend Anna but also her own spiritual life.

An Episcopalian Rates Rev. Lily Connor Again

Not as good a book as her first, but still a "good read." I wish, as an Episcopalian, she had stayed within the Denomination rather than taking on the ultra-right wing of Roman Catholicism, though the story was exciting and she did not do so in a condemnatory manner. She is certainly correct in taking on the anti-Semitism which all Denominations have fallen into and are just now, for the most part, trying to get away from.

A Religious Mystery

This is the second outing for Episcopalian priest, Lily Connor (the first being "The Tentmaker"). She is working on an event sponsored by the Holocaust remembrance committee when her good friend and holocaust survivor is kidnapped. Upon investigation into the kidnapping, Lily finds that she doesn't know her friends as well as she first thought. She goes through some emotional turmoil as her beliefs are brought into question due to her perceived failings. On the mystery side of the story, I enjoyed the fact that we are given many possible suspects and could decide for ourselves who we thought was the guilty party.

Fantastic work

Lily Connor was born and raised as a Catholic, but left the church to become an Episcopalian minister. She is a tentmaker, earning a living outside the church and has no assigned church although the diocese would like her to serve in one. Her closest friend, Anna Baneta, watched the Nazis kill her parents for harboring Jews. Anna went to an orphanage and then to Auschwitz before immigrating to America. Lily and Anna work for the ecumenical council sponsoring an event involving the Holocaust. When they arrive at the church to insure everything is ready for the worshippers, they find a Nazi flag and some vandalism. Anna thinks she knows who is behind the sacrilege and tells this to Lily before leaving to take a bus home. However, instead of reaching her destination, Anna vanishes, leaving Lily determined to find her. EARTH HAS NO SORROW is a powerful work that does not preach, but questions some of the basic tenets of organized religion through Lily's crisis of faith. Readers feel her anguish, confusion, and sorrow over what she believes is a failure on her part. The complex mystery contains numerous feasible suspects, which makes for a difficult guess as to whom is the culprit. Michelle Blake uses a missing person's tale to focus on religion, but never decrees any judgment. Harriet Klausner