Recently, I finished a novel entitled Adriel Peregrine to be released on July 23 by Atmosphere Press.  It is the second novel I’ve written, the first being The Light in the Ruins.  Adriel Peregrine is about a young man, raised to be a Christian, who wanders off the Way.  Because of disappointment in young love with the added tragedy of the murder of the one he loved and his service as a soldier in the Union army during which he lost a good friend in battle, Adriel questions his Christian faith.  His questioning leads to agnosticism that borders on atheism.  He decides to leave home after the War and take a job elsewhere, the first of which is as a worker on the Delaware Canal.  He becomes a wanderer taking jobs far afield–on a clipper ship in the opium trade; on a steamer doing passenger service between New York and Liverpool; as a stevedore on the docks of Hong Kong, and then later in London.  In Hong Kong he falls in love with a Chinese girl with its ensuing disappointment and sadness. His drug and alcohol habits along with his cavorting with prostitutes bring him to a very low point, until he is picked up off the street by a man who represents an order of Anglican priests with a mission in East London.  While working as a stevedore, he spends his free time in mission work.  It is in London that he turns back away from the wilderness to continue his pilgrim journey on the Way.

Adriel decides to journey to Lindisfarne, the holy island, to begin the rebuilding of his relationship with Christ.  He takes a job at the limekilns on the island, work that he had done years before in Pennsylvania.  He eventually decides to return home with the determination to solve Abigail’s murder.  His apprehension is that because of his bad behavior, his parents would not receive him back.  About this, he is mistaken.  He again takes up a job in the limekilns, owned by the employer of Adriel’s father.

Adriel meets up with a woman, Jennie Hallewell, who had loved him since they were in school.  He seeks unrelentingly for the killer, who not only was responsible for the death of Abigail but also Caleb, a friend, falsely accused of the murder and hanged. The novel ends with Adriel’s reconciliation with His Lord and the murder solved. The story is one of redemption and deliverance that shows that God’s mercy never ends.

 

Michael G. Tavella

May 18, 2024

Vigil of Pentecost