Download Judgement Day epub

In medieval times, this novel tells us, there were two interesting men. One was Odo de Fulde, an evil Norman Templar knight who was going around the English countryside, raping and pillaging. When he got to the village of East Coke, a man named Barnabus ordered Odo to detour around the village, in the name of God. Odo was a wicked man (for one thing, he martyred Barnabus) who swore on his deathbed that he would "keep doing evil, right up till Judgment Day." Years passed, eventually Barnabus was declared a saint, a local church was built and named after him, and Odo was entombed in the wall of that church. (Because the villagers didn't want Odo buried either inside the church or in the churchyard).

Now in present day, the Church of Saint Barnabus in East Coke is "redundant," and due to be closed (which would put its rector, Theodore Austell, out of a job). But then two rich Californians, Royal and Bette Andersen, buy the church and pay to have it demolished, transported to Blissful Garden, California, and rebuilt. Odo de Fulde's sarcophagus gets transported to Blissful Garden too.

What nobody seems to be much bothered by is, Saint Barnabus's is no longer on sacred ground.

The day that the reconstruction is complete and the church is to have its "grand opening" in California, weird things start happening. Church bells ringing at 5 a.m., when there is nobody in the church to pull the ropes, is the first (and the mildest) of the weird things.

This frustrates the people of Blissful Garden. The people of that little enclave are fabulously rich, and are used to getting their own way. They are also, each and every one, fabulously rich because of some wicked deed in their past. (Which is all the more amazing because two of the men living in Blissful Garden are each the head of a church.) The only two good people in the story are the rector, who is visiting from England at the invitation of Bette Andersen; and Lourdes, the Andersens' very religious Mexican maid.

When Pauline Glen Winslow wrote this, she was a (former?) Englishwoman living in New York. The book flap doesn't mention her ever setting foot in California, but everything she writes about California and Californians seems right. Of course, the "English" parts of the novel feel real too.

My big recommendation to potential book-buyers is: You should buy this novel because it's SPOOKY. Plus, wicked people get their just desserts.

I read "I, Martha Adams" many years ago and really liked it, so when I saw this, I was hoping for another story of the same genre. All I could find was this book, and ordered it without really knowing what it was about because there was no product description and no reviews (and I was unable to find anything about it elsewhere on the internet). From looking at the cover, it is obviously a horror story, and sorry, but I do not think I will ever read it because I'm just not into these, so I cannot give you a review. But for your benefit, here is what the back cover says so you might get an idea of the book:

"It begins when a spoiled, indolent couple, Bette and Royal Anderson, purchase St. Barnabus, an ancient English church, and transport it and rebuild it in their wealthy California suburb of Blissful Garden. Austell, elderly rector of St. Barnabus, having been invited for its reopening as a gallery, is promptly seduced by Blissful Garden's abundance of sunshine, sex and beautiful women, and pays little heed to the ominous signs being generated by the unhallowed church... Winslow has taken a classic theme - the conflict between innocence and corruption - and refashioned it into a compelling contemporary tale. It is, however, not for the squeamish."