Then Came Heaven - Softcover

The new romantic saga by the bestselling author of HOME SONG and SMALL TOWN GIRL.

Browerville is a small town in Minnesota, with a close, mostly Polish, community steeped in Catholicism. Everyone knows everyone else and looks out for each other’s children. And there Eddie and Krystyna Olczak have been bringing up their two little girls, Anne and Lucy, and living quiet but fulfilled, loving lives – Eddie is janitor at St Joseph’s church and school, Krystyna looks after their children and does voluntary work. Then tragedy strikes – Krystyna is killed by a train as she ill-judgedly drives across the track.

Everybody rallies round to help the bereaved family, including Irene, Krystyna’s plain and lonely sister – herself long in love with Eddie – and Sister Regina, one of Anne and Lucy’s teachers at the school. Regina had had a vocation to be a nun since she was a very young girl but now, in her early thirties, she is muddled and beginning to question whether she has done the right thing in renouncing the chance to have a husband and family in favour of a way of life she is coming to find increasingly unfulfilling.

Eddie is touched by the tact and concern of the nun towards his two bereft children, but, as committed Catholics, a chasm lies between them. It is a chasm both become overwhelmingly tempted to cross.

A grief-stricken widower learns to open his heart again . . .

Browerville, Minnesota, 1950, and life is just about perfect for Eddie Olczak. A devoted husband and father, he derives intense pleasure from the life he's built with his beloved wife Krystyna and their two daughters, and from his work as the handyman for St Joseph's, the Catholic church that is the cornerstone of the community. But when Krystyna is taken from him in a tragic accident, Eddie is sure that his life, too, is over.

Among the friends who rally round in the dark days and weeks that follow is Sister Regina, the girls' teacher at St Joseph's school. She has always felt a special affection for the family, although her strict religious vows prevent her from becoming to close to them. But as time passes, Regina and Eddie realise there is a connection between them that somehow goes beyond their shared love of Krystyna and the children. Thrilled – and secretly frightened – they must summon the courage to look within their hearts and make their own choices.