The divine economy of salvation

the long version

"When Sister Angela receives an anonymous package containing an ornate silver candlestick, an object she hasn't seen in twenty-five years, her safe and simple life begins to unravel. Suddenly she must confront her darkest secret: her participation in a crime from which she can no longer hide. As she searches for who might have cause to expose her, memories of St. X. School for Girls come flooding back.". "At the center is a group of girls who call themselves The Sisterhood, from whom fourteen-year-old Angela desperately seeks comfort and approval. Saddened by her mother's declining health and her father's abandonment, Angela looks up to the group's beautiful and charismatic leader, Rachel. On the verge of becoming women, the girls taunt and tempt each other. When Angela is encouraged to play a joke on another student, the rituals of The Sisterhood take a violent turn at the girl's initiation into the group." "Now, from within the refuge of the convent, where she has devoted her life to the work of God, and with the unexpected help of a young pregnant girl whom the nuns have befriended, Angela at long last faces the truth - and the boundaries of her own faith."--BOOK JACKET.