A New Song (The Mitford Years, Book 5) [Hardcover]

Jan Karon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 1999

Jan Karon's millions of fans can't wait to sit down with her heartwarming and hilarious characters, who have a way of becoming family. In fact, readers and booksellers across the country kept Out to Canaan and At Home in Mitford on The New York Times bestseller list for months. In A New Song, Mitford's longtime Episcopal priest, Father Tim, retires. However, new challenges and adventures await when he agrees to serve as interim minister of a small church on Whitecap Island. He and his wife, Cynthia, soon find that Whitecap has its own unforgettable characters: a church organist with a mysterious past, a lovelorn bachelor placing personal ads, a mother battling paralyzing depression. They also find that Mitford is never far away when circumstances "back home" keep their phone ringing off the hook. In this fifth novel of the beloved series, fans old and new will discover that a trip to Mitford and Whitecap is twice as good for the soul. "Everything that, in the wee hours of the night, you like a book to be, warm-hearted and funny, with a hero marked by...profound inner strength" --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As if being a priest in this day and age isn't difficult enough, try shepherding two parishes, located hundreds of miles apart, at the same time. A predicament of biblical proportions indeed, but one the indomitable Father Tim Kavanaugh and his cheerful wife, Cynthia, can handle, with a little help from the Lord--not to mention their friends--in Jan Karon's A New Song, the fifth installment in her much-loved Mitford series. When asked to act as interim minister for a tiny island parish in North Carolina's Outer Banks, the recently retired Father heeds the call, all the while trusting in a divine master plan: "He had prayed that God would send him wherever He pleased, and when his bishop presented the idea of Whitecap, he knew it wasn't his bishop's bright idea at all, but God's."

From the more routine duties of settling into a new church to dealing with a number of deeper domestic issues--including a single mother's spiral into depression and a reclusive next door neighbor in need of kindness--Father Tim's new parish presents a welcome challenge. All the while, of course, the folks back home keep him informed of goings-on in Mitford--the biggest being the recent arrest of Dooley Barlowe, a mountain boy whom Father Tim had taken into his home and heart five years earlier. As in past Mitford episodes, things have a way of working themselves out, but not before Father Tim and his accompanying cast learn a few more valuable lessons about life. Full of the homey atmosphere and heartwarming truths--not to mention the endearingly quirky characters--that are Karon's trademark, A New Song is a delightful celebration of the communal ties that bind. --Stefanie Hargreaves

From Publishers Weekly

In this fifth volume of Karon's popular series (Out to Canaan, etc.) set in the quaint North Carolina town of Mitford, where people chuckle and say "dadgummit," Father Timothy Kavanagh is leaving town for a post-retirement interim appointment at a small island parish off the coast of North Carolina. After what seems (even to the minister and his wife) to be an endless round of good-byes, he and his wife, Cynthia, set off in a brand-new red convertible. Stormy weather, which closes in on them as they near Whitecap Island, presages the many struggles to come. Once on the island, Fr. Tim tries to befriend a seemingly hostile and isolated neighbor while he and Cynthia take over the care of a three-year-old boy whose mother is suffering from depression. Back in Mitford, meanwhile, Dooley, the mountain boy who is like a son to Fr. Tim, is thrown into jail, and the quiet woman who seemed the perfect tenant for the rectory house surprises the minister with a lawsuit. Additionally, an unexpected storm moves in off the ocean with devastating force. Karon adds a dash of suspense to her homey brew with the increasingly suspicious behavior of Fr. Tim's tenant, whose story emerges in a compelling confession. Newcomers to the series may find they have much to catch up on, but readers making a return trip to the Kavanaghs' world will be happily swept up in the maelstrom of small-town and spiritual drama that characterizes the novel. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club super release; Crossings Book Club main selection; Penguin audio; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Viking Press; 1ST edition (April 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670878103
• ISBN-13: 978-0670878109
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (176 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #361,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jan Karon is the author of the bestselling series of nine Mitford novels featuring Father Timothy Kavanagh, an Episcopal priest, and the fictional village of Mitford. Set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Karon's Mitford books include At Home in Mitford; A Light in the Window; These High, Green Hills; Out to Canaan; A New Song; A Common Life: The Wedding Story; In This Mountain; Shepherd's Abiding; and Light from Heaven. The Father Tim Novels include "Home to Holly Springs" and last fall's release of "In the Company of Others," set in County Sligo, Ireland. There are over 40 million Mitford and Father Tim novels, childrens books, and CDs in print.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another excellent story by Karon, June 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A New Song (The Mitford Years, Book 5) (Hardcover)

The Mitford books, and now a Whitecap book, have been a surprising and wonderful stroll through a different layer of life than most people experience -- or at least take note of. A New Song continues a great tradition. Everybody knew from the beginning who took the bronze statue, but it was a very moving chapter when it was resolved, even if one is a little dumbfounded that Fr. Tim didn't figure out who took it. My questions: So is it in bk 6 or 7 that Lace and Dooley make it to the altar? Will Dooley's birth father be there? Will Buck punch him out? Will Morris be the organist? Will Fr. Tim be there, or will he (or Cynthia) have gone home (could we stand the poignancy)? Thanks for the great and fresh spiritual writing, Jan Karon. And thanks even more to my own mother, for sharing this series with me.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Homesick for Mitford, January 10, 2000

By 

Debra J. Berggren - See all my reviews

This review is from: A New Song (The Mitford Years, Book 5) (Hardcover)

Having always been a homebody, I identified right away with Father Tim & Cynthia when they left their precious Mitford to go to Whitecap. What an adventure they had. I enjoyed every sentence of this book. Are there really people like Father Tim and Cynthia in this world? How I wish I could be their friend and neighbor. I gleaned scriptural knowledge and human knowledge from all of Jan's Mitford books. The ending of"A New Song" has me baffled indeed. Who is the man in the pearly white shirt? Could it be an angel perhaps? I will sit and sleep restlessly waiting for Jan's next book.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars White Cap Island here I come, February 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A New Song (The Mitford Years, Book 5) (Hardcover)

This book was recommended by a friend and from the first page I was hooked. I moved right along with the rector and his wife and loved their new parish and missed their old one even though I hadn't met the folks in Mitford. I felt like I had been a part of their lives since the beginning. Ms. Karon draws you into the goings on and by the books end you want to know more about your friends.