The White Birds of Morning

Hidden among his Trappist friends at a secluded monastery, Andrew Chornavka has already faced one aggressive investigation into his past by the Vatican. He is certain all that his behind him, and he can return to his life of prayer and meditation, but he finds out he is wrong. A second papal delegation descends upon him and shatters his fragile quiet, once again led by the archbishop and former soldier who is determined to see Andrew's sister Zoya declared a saint. This time the questions are about Ukraine, Russia, and Germany and the brutal world of the Eastern Front in the Second World War. This time it is about those in Andrew's family who made war and those who strove for peace and those who shed blood or brought healing in the name of both. And this time, instead of hostility and resistance, Andrew gives the archbishop more than he expected - an unflinching honesty that opens doors the old monastic thought he had closed forever and that he flings wide in order to free his own heart and soul from a haunted past.

Murray Andrew Pura's fiction has been short-listed for a number of honours, including the Dartmouth Book Award and the John Spencer Hill Literary Award. The White Birds of Morning is the second in a trilogy of novels. Pura lives and writes in southwestern Alberta.