Ordinary Devotion

Braided medieval and modern stories of an anchoress, her handmaiden, and the adjunct professor searching for them across centuries as they each navigate ambition, confinement, and the patriarchy.

＂The modern and medieval stories spiral in and out of each other, intricate and vivid as the letters of illuminated manuscripts, connected by the mysteries of paradox: confinement and freedom, loss and fulfillment.＂ -Elizabeth Cunningham, My Life as a Prayer and The Maeve Chronicles

＂Holt-Browning is adept at honing in on the passion for life, nature, and language that can sustain a person through the hardest times.＂ --Nerissa Nields, Plastic Angel and All Together Singing in the Kitchen

Twelve-year-old Elinor is enclosed with an anchoress, Lady Adela, in a cell at Wenlock Abbey, 14th century England. Centuries later, an adjunct professor of medieval studies discovers Elinor’s long-lost book of hours on a research trip to England. Holt-Browning explores women’s timeless struggle for personal agency as her unforgettable characters discover the burdens and rewards of faith and devotion. A must-read for fans of Julian of Norwich.

Kristen Holt-Browning is a novelist, poet, and freelance copy editor and proofreader. Her poetry chapbook, The Only Animal Awake in the House, was published by Moonstone Press in 2021. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in several literary journals, including Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hunger Mountain, and Necessary Fiction. She holds a BA from Connecticut College and an MA from University College London. Ordinary Devotion is her first novel.