The Calling

A novel about finding your calling, the extraordinary nun Mother Mary Joseph Aubert, and the realities of religious bigotry in late-nineteenth century New Zealand.

‘Dreams were dangerous things.’

It was the dream of Molly’s dying mother that she would become a nun. It isn’t, however, the dream of her Methodist father, who wants her to marry.

But what is her true calling and how can she follow it?

As the 19th century draws to an end, Molly searches out the extraordinary nun Mother Mary Joseph Aubert to find out.

About the Author

Fleur Beale is the author of many award-winning books for children and young adults - she has now had more than 40 books published in New Zealand, as well as being published in the United States and England. Beale is the only writer to have twice won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book: with Slide the Corner in 2007, and I Am Not Esther in 2009.

She won the Esther Glen Award for distinguished contribution to children's literature for Juno Of Taris in the 2009 LIANZA Children's Book Awards. Fierce September won the YA category in the 2011 NZ Post Children's Book Awards and the LIANZA Young Adult Award in 2011.

In 2012 she won the Margaret Mahy Medal for her outstanding contribution to children's writing, and in 2015 she was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature. In 1999, Beale was Dunedin College of Education's Writer in Residence. A former high-school teacher, Beale lives in Wellington.