Nick: so persuasive, ever the optimist, still boyishly handsome. Always on a quest to spin straw into gold, to heal wounded souls. The conversion was his idea, but it’s Zoe who’s here now, in a valley of old coalmines and new vineyards, working out how to live in a deconsecrated church. What to do with the altar, all those memorial plaques and the stained-glass windows? Alone, and troubled by a restless ghost, Zoe is stuck in purgatory—until a young teacher named Melanie barges into her life. Amanda Lohrey’s The Conversion is a startling and seductive novel about how the homes we live in shape us. Like the bestselling The Labyrinth, it is distinguished by its clear-eyed intelligence, instinct for drama, and effortless readability.