Thirty-year-old virgin Vincent Dungarvan is a schoolmaster whose mother desperately wishes him to become a Roman Catholic Priest. But on meeting Laura – intelligent, warm and erotically attractive – Vincent becomes torn between his intended vocation and a passionate desire to marry her. This is a powerful and deeply moving tale of divine calling versus mortal desire.

Bradford-born John Braine ranks alongside Kingsley Amis, John Osborne and Allan Sillitoe as one of the so-called Angry Young Men of the 1950s, whose literature was a protest against class distinctions and middle-class manners. His first novel, Room at the Top, was an overnight success and has been made into a highly successful film, which won two Oscars.

‘A subtle study of love and sex’ (Saturday Review)

‘…real anguish of mind and a new subtlety in the treatment of human relationships’ (The Guardian)

‘In this novel more than any other Braine shows that he know what men – and women – are like’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘It is perfectly done…worked up to a compelling climax admirably prepared for’ (Evening Standard)