by Richard René
Isabella Morgan is lost, running away from a cruel father and a broken home. Tempted by the evil Djinn, she finds herself in Mysterion, a hidden world peopled by Cyclops and giant turtles, dragons and mermaids and winged Angeli. There she reinvents herself as Bella Couteau, girl pirate, and seems destined for greatness as the chosen heir of the pirate king Hodoul. But when Hodoul commands her to assassinate Jonah, the New Elder of Mysterion, Bella encounters a world that challenges everything she believes and offers her a chance at a new and better life—if only she can trust enough to grasp it.
Praise for Nearly Orthodox
"With uncommonly keen insight born of uncommonly keen honesty, Angela Doll Carlson has given us an uncommon pilgrim’s journey, one that might actually serve, comfort, and assist other pilgrims along the way." -Scott Cairns, author of Short Trip to the Edge and Idiot Psalms
"Because [this writer] is a poet, her deeply felt and unsparingly described progress as a seeker resounds with freshness. There is some extraordinarily authentic writing here, some insights of profound simplicity and truth,... a story penetratingly painful but revelatory. She tells us that Orthodoxy settled into her, soul and skin. And we believe her." -Luci Shaw, author of Scape: Poems, and Adventure of Ascent: Field Notes from a Lifelong Journey; Writer in Residence, Regent College
"Angela Doll Carlson has been a chain-smoking poet, a singer in a punk band, a tattooed mother who types film scripts while nursing her infant daughter. Indeed, she’s unorthodox in almost every sense of the word... except for the one that ultimately comes to matter. A wise and beautiful memoir." -David McGlynn, author of A Door in the Ocean and The End of the Straight and Narrow
"With deft, poetic writing, Angela Doll Carlson recounts the struggle to know herself, to know herself in God, and to know herself in and through the ancient tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. Her story resounds with truth, humor and the desire to encounter the holy. Highly recommended." -Mary C. Earle, author of The Desert Mothers: Spiritual Practices from the Women of the Wilderness
