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“Reader, beware…you don’t just read Visible Signs; you inhabit it. In luminous prose, Marcus tells the story of two women in the turbulent 1970s—Jude, a Catholic nun, and her childhood friend Connie, now a wife and mother—both questioning their vows and chafing against the frustrations of their very different paths. In a small town in upstate New York they find themselves on parallel quests, rethinking cherished assumptions about family and friendship, love and faith… and making choices that will change their lives forever.”

— Judith Ryan Hendricks
, best-selling author of Bread Alone

“Anyone who has stood on the cusp of change will relate to these characters, who comb through their pasts and examine the shards at their feet for clues to the true calling that will carry them forward. A historical novel that speaks to the daunting freedoms of our times.”

— Kathryn Craft
, award-winning author of The Far End of Happy

“In Visible Signs you’ll meet and fall in love with . . . old friends making new starts, both painful and promising. Like the Mary garden planted in the story, what is planted comes to fruition, feeding the deer as well as these two strong characters who know the price to be paid for claiming themselves. I loved it from start to finish.”

— Jo-Ann Mapson
, Author of Owen’s Daughter and Solomon’s Oak

“For Sister Jude, a life of service to others takes on new meaning as she works to feed the hungry in her community and help a friend fleeing a dissolving marriage. Author Grace Marcus gives us these people with verve and compassion, from the nuns to the immigrants, from a traditional Italian family to the sensitive farmer who might just shift Sister Jude’s plans. This story of women re-examining their lives in the 1970s resonates strongly with our own times.”

— Valerie Nieman
, author of In the Lonely Backwater

 “I was gripped by Jude’s character and dilemma and by the vivid depiction of life in the monastery. Visible Signs is a wonderful novel, one that will captivate its readers!”

— Ursula DeYoung
, Editor, Embark: A Literary Journal for Novelists.
Visible Signs

If God is calling her, Jude wishes He would speak louder. Or send her a sign.

He had shown her the way once, so clearly, she’d forsaken her widowed father and the boy who loved her to answer His call.

But that was before the battles—from the Vatican to Vietnam—for Women’s Rights, Civil Rights, and the War on Poverty. Now she can no longer reconcile her sheltered existence with the desperate faces outside the monastery walls. Vowing to start a food bank, she leaves the convent, only to become ensnared in her best friend’s crumbling marriage.

When Connie, pregnant with two children in tow, shows up at her door, Jude offers them refuge. But Jude soon learns how little she understands of the vagaries of the heart. And that her fierce faith and determination may not be enough to save Connie from her husband, the children from danger or herself from a fall from grace.

Paperback and eBook available now

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I’m honored to receive an artist support grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

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