The Unwelcome Guest
Richard Coles
Jun 2027 · Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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About this audiobook
'What did you see?'
'Nothing. An empty, ordinary room, with a hissing gas fire. But I was overwhelmed with this terrible feeling of dread - dread of something . . . something as guileless as a child and as ancient as sin.'
In a post-war Britain grieving the horrors of WWII, a young curate is called to an unassuming terrace house. There is something inside: something that terrifies the residents to the point of silence, something urgent and desperate to be seen. Unnerved, he nevertheless brushes off this brief and startling encounter with the unexplained. But the neighbour, Father Bly, seems profoundly affected by this reckoning: panic-stricken, he flees.
Forty years later, Bly tends a bleak parish and dwindling flock on a windswept Scottish island - isolated and undisturbed. Until a stranger shows up, and brings the past snapping at his heels . . .
The Unwelcome Guest is a nostalgic, emotionally sweeping story about long-buried secrets and our inability to outrun the past, spanning from village life in the 1940s to the 1980s Highlands, from the beloved Reverend Richard Coles.
'Nothing. An empty, ordinary room, with a hissing gas fire. But I was overwhelmed with this terrible feeling of dread - dread of something . . . something as guileless as a child and as ancient as sin.'
In a post-war Britain grieving the horrors of WWII, a young curate is called to an unassuming terrace house. There is something inside: something that terrifies the residents to the point of silence, something urgent and desperate to be seen. Unnerved, he nevertheless brushes off this brief and startling encounter with the unexplained. But the neighbour, Father Bly, seems profoundly affected by this reckoning: panic-stricken, he flees.
Forty years later, Bly tends a bleak parish and dwindling flock on a windswept Scottish island - isolated and undisturbed. Until a stranger shows up, and brings the past snapping at his heels . . .
The Unwelcome Guest is a nostalgic, emotionally sweeping story about long-buried secrets and our inability to outrun the past, spanning from village life in the 1940s to the 1980s Highlands, from the beloved Reverend Richard Coles.
'What did you see?'
'Nothing. An empty, ordinary room, with a hissing gas fire. But I was overwhelmed with this terrible feeling of dread - dread of something . . . something as guileless as a child and as ancient as sin.'
In a post-war Britain grieving the horrors of WWII, a young curate is cal...
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About the author
THE REVEREND RICHARD COLES is a writer, broadcaster and an Anglican priest. He co-presented Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 for a number of years and appears, from time to time, on QI, Have I Got News For You and Would I Lie To You? He has won Christmas MasterChef, Celebrity Mastermind twice, and captained Leeds to victory in Christmas University Challenge in 2019. A contestant on Strictly Come Dancing (2017) and a third place finalist on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! (2024) he exhibits huge bravery.
He writes regularly for the Sunday Times, and is the author of half a dozen books, including a bestselling autobiography, Fathomless Riches, and the bereavement bestseller The Madness of Grief, written after the death of his partner, David Coles. The first three books in the Canon Clement series have all been No.1 Sunday Times bestsellers.
He writes regularly for the Sunday Times, and is the author of half a dozen books, including a bestselling autobiography, Fathomless Riches, and the bereavement bestseller The Madness of Grief, written after the death of his partner, David Coles. The first three books in the Canon Clement series have all been No.1 Sunday Times bestsellers.
THE REVEREND RICHARD COLES is a writer, broadcaster and an Anglican priest. He co-presented Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 for a number of years and appears, from time to time, on QI, Have I Got News For You and Would I Lie To You? He has won Christmas MasterChef, Celebrity Mastermind twice, and ca...
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