Visible Signs

Sleepless nights and restless days erode Sister Jude’s peace of mind, capsizing the equilibrium of the life she chose, the life she’d loved. Although she roams the acres of monastery grounds in silent prayer so frequently she had to tighten the cincture around her waist, she cannot find her bearings. 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. 

Grace Marcus holds a Master in Theatre Arts from Montclair University. Visible Signs is her debut novel. An early version of the book was a semifinalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. She has been an actress, waitress, social worker, newspaper editor, and radio and cable TV show producer to name a few of the byways on her road to becoming a writer. Her work has been published in Philadelphia Stories, The Bucks County Writer Magazine, Adanna Literary Journal, TheWritersEye, Women on Writing, Me First Magazine, and Embark Literary Journal. A Brooklyn native, she has lived on both coasts, and presently calls North Carolina home where she is working on a new novel.