The Annunciation

"At the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate."

- Mark 10:6-9

In Bucharest during the mid 1990s, a secret radical group, the Piagnoni, prepare a surrogate to assassinate Pope John Paul II. In Florence, Italy, a group of religious students from Detroit have joined an Art Restoration Fellowship at San Marco convent to study and assist in the restoration of frescos by the famous painter Fra Angelico. Two young students in the fellowship, seminarian Finn McNelis and Felician sister Olivia Gianetti, fall in love, testing the commitment they made to their Catholic faith. Meanwhile, their most-liked professor worries about new evidence linking Leonardo da Vinci to the discredited Savaronola, a fanatical fifteenth century friar revered by the Piagnoni. When Pope John Paul ll visits the San Marco convent to view the newly restored Fra Angelico frescos, Finn heroically thwarts the assassination attempt. The Vatican rewards him with an attractive position, forcing him to make life-altering decisions.

"Good novels move, entertain, and teach us something about ourselves and the world. Ron Teachworth's The Annunciation gives us all that in spades."

- Kimberly Kafka, author