Ultimate Prizes
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Raven was married three times. By his first wife, whom he met during his days as a Cambridge undergraduate, he had four children. After her death, in 1944, he remained a widower for some time before marrying an elderly American friend whom he had known for many years; she died soon after the wedding. In 1956 he married a Belgian who during the war had taken an active role in the Resistance. Thinking highly of women and delighting in their company, he believed it was wrong that they should be confined to a limited form of service in the Church, and he spoke out in favour of their ordination.
He never became a bishop.
In his theology Raven believed that a divine purpose operated through and in the evolutionary process, and that there was an essential unity in all created things. He had no time for a God conceived as sitting up on high outside the world. For him God was in the world, immanent, and the pinnacle of God’s creative evolutionary process was the human personality. Having placed this great emphasis on personality, Raven stressed the idea of a personal God and saw religion at its best in terms of personal communication with this divine figure. Nature, he thought, offered a design which could be attributed to God’s personal purpose, and Jesus was the manifestation of God’s personal presence in its highest form. All was a unity in this immanent, creating, loving God; all was one.
This fundamentally optimistic approach to the world meant that in Raven’s writings there was little room for paradox and tragedy, alienation and ambiguity, and when the new neo-orthodox school of theology tried to grapple with these problems, he was bitterly opposed not only to the idea of a transcendent God who stood apart from mankind but to the idea that truth could be reached through disunity, by the clash of opposing principles. For him, committed as he was to the concept of unity, it was impossible to concede that there could be an equally valid model of God based on a duality. It seemed to him that to pursue such a paradox was to pursue a policy of despair. Throughout his career he saw his theology go increasingly out of fashion, but towards the end of his life the neo-orthodox school began to wane in England, until at last in the 1960s Liberal theology, in a new and far more radical form, started to move back to the centre of the stage.
GEORGE KENNEDY ALLEN BELL, two years Raven’s senior, was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1957. Though distressed by the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles and sympathetic to the German people in consequence, he spoke out firmly in the 1930s against Hitler’s persecution of the Jews and the Christian Churches, and during the war he urged the British Government, though without success, to support the Germans who were plotting to overthrow Hitler. He was not a pacifist, but his speeches appealing for the preservation of Christian values in the conduct of the war soon brought him into conflict with the Government’s policies, and he earned himself many enemies in high places; people often failed to understand that Bell remained passionately anti-Nazi. After the war he went to Berlin and preached the Christian message of reconciliation to the thousands who flocked to hear him. Deeply involved in the reconstruction of Christian Europe, he became a leading figure in the World Council of Churches. He was eventually awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, with sash and star, the highest honour the Federal Republic of Germany could bestow, but he died a few hours before the news of the award arrived. Mrs. Bell received the decoration from the German Ambassador in November 1958.
About the Author
SUSAN HOWATCH was born in Surrey, England. She received a law degree from London University and spent eleven years in and around New York City. She now lives in London. She is the author of six suspense novels published when she was in her twenties and seven major bestselling novels besides ULTIMATE PRIZES, all of which have been published in paperback by Fawcett.
Sex.
Sin.
Power.
Susan Howcatch bestselling
Church of England novels.
Look for the newest edition,
SCANDALOUS RISKS,
at your local bookstore.
Published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf.
And be sure to look for these Church of England novels in Fawcett paperback:
GLITTERING IMAGES
Charles Ashworth, an Anglican clergyman, is sent to Starbridge Cathedral by the Archbishop of Canterbury on a discreet mission: to observe the Bishop Alex Jardine’s household and give warning of a potential Church scandal.
GLAMOROUS POWERS
Anglican monk Jonathan Darrow is gifted with psychic powers. He receives a shattering vision and knows he must leave the monastery. He is afraid that once he leaves this stage on which he has painfully managed to triumph over his weaknesses, his lethal pride and ambition could revive to lead him dangerously astray.
Also by Susan Howatch:
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
The #1 bestselling novel of Oxmoon, the rambling Welsh estate which is the dream, downfall and destiny of the Godwin family. Raised on tales of glittering parties where young lovers waltzed to “The Blue Danube,” they are ensnared by the family legacy of madness, murder and doomed romance.
SINS OF THE FATHERS
This is the world of the Van Zales: servants and country houses, European summers and Bar Harbor clambakes, polite marriages and discreet affairs. But this world suddenly begins to fall apart and we see this glamorous sphere for what it really is—rife with ruthless, power-hungry men, fortune hunters, secret sex, blackmail, and violence.
THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT
Dinah is young enough to be Paul Van Zale’s daughter. She is a very ambitious and beautiful woman with her eye on Van Zale’s tremendous fortune. She doesn’t count on falling in love. Paul finds himself attracted to Dinah as her vitality and her sensuality consume him. With her he can forget his past, his wife, his enemies, even his empire.
CASHELMARA
Three generations of love, passion and turmoil in 19th century Ireland, at Cashelmara, home of the aristocratic de Salis clan. A half-century of encounters between unforgettable characters, in a great, colorful novel.
Susan Howatch
PENMARRIC
Set against the stark Cornwall landscape, this is the saga of a family divided against itself. At the center is the great mansion, Penmarric, where Mark Castellack brings Janna, his bride. The first act in a tempestuous drama spanning three generations.
CALL IN THE NIGHT
In the heat of a New York summer, a telephone call from England shatters Claire Sullivan’s life. “I’m in terrible trouble—please, please come,” begs her sister Gina before the line went dead. When Scotland Yard cannot trace Gina’s whereabouts, Claire arrives in London to find Gina herself.
THE DARK SHORE
Jon Towers’s first wife died under tragic circumstances, but this time Jon is determined to protect his bride, Sarah, from the danger that plagues his home. But as friends and family ensnare the newlyweds in a web of deceit, it seems that nothing will keep Sarah from the fate that befell the first Mrs. Towers.
THE DEVIL ON LAMMAS NIGHT
He was irresistable—his eyes hypnotic, his voice compelling. When Tristan Poole cast his spell over Nicola Morrison, she forgot everything—including her engagement to Evan Colwyn. As Tristan uses Nicola to strengthen his cult’s power, it seems that Evan alone is left to battle the Satanic forces.
Susan Howatch
APRIL’S GRAVE
Karen Bennett tried to forget her marriage to Neville and his affair with her twin sister April. But where was April now? Had she really run away as everyone believed? Karen returns to Neville, whom she still loves. At their home in Scotland, Karen uncovers reasons to suspect the unthinkable.
THE WAITING SANDS
“I feel so strongly as if everything is waiting. The house, the shore, and now these sands are waiting.” Rachel, too, had been waiting, for an end to the nightmare that had already taken two lives. Someone had turned the handsome old Scottish mansion into a place of horror.
THE SHROUDED WALLS
When Marianne Fleury wed A
xel Brandson, it was no love match. Axel needed an English wife to satisfy his father’s will. Axel’s father was murdered by Rodric, his half-brother, who was killed in an accident soon after. But now strange occurrences were plaguing Haraldssyke. Was Rodric still alive? And was he stalking his next victim?