Starbridge Books in Order

Starbridge is Susan Howatch's six book sequence about the Church of England in the twentieth century, told through overlapping lives rather than dry history. The books can be read alone, but together they trace a long story about faith, power and change.

All six novels are set around the fictional diocese and cathedral city of Starbridge in the west of England, a place closely modelled on Salisbury. Each book is written in the first person by a different narrator, yet the same core characters walk in and out of one another's stories. That structure lets you see the same crisis several times over, from very different angles.

The first half of the series, beginning with Glittering Images and Glamorous Powers, opens in the 1930s and runs through the Second World War. In those books you meet Charles Ashworth, a clever but brittle academic priest sent to investigate a bishop's supposed scandal, and Jonathan Darrow, the ageing mystic whose visions and healing gifts unsettle everyone around him. Ultimate Prizes follows ambitious archdeacon Neville Aysgarth as war and personal loss strip away his certainty about what success really means.

The later books jump forward into the 1960s, when old patterns in church and society are starting to crack. Scandalous Risks is told by Venetia Flaxton, a young aristocrat whose risky relationship with the now powerful Dean Aysgarth plays out against real life theological debates. In Mystical Paths, Nicholas Darrow, Jonathan's son, veers close to collapse as he investigates the troubled death of Christian Aysgarth and experiments recklessly with exorcism. Absolute Truths returns to an older Charles Ashworth, now a bishop, as he is forced to confront grief, guilt and the limits of his own rigid beliefs.

Across the six books you will see the inside of a cathedral close, the Fordite monastic community, theological colleges and parishes from smoky London streets to quiet country villages. Howatch pays close attention to class, marriage, sexuality and the small power games of committees and chapters, then asks what happens when real spiritual experience cuts across those habits.

The tone is thoughtful but never dry. Expect long conversations, letter exchanges, spiritual direction sessions and inner monologue, but also scandals, breakdowns, romances and the occasional burst of very English humour. The result is a sequence that feels like a single, slowly unfolding story about broken people learning what grace might look like in practice.

On this page you can see the Starbridge books listed in order, with summaries and notes on how the characters connect, so you can either dip in where a particular narrator appeals or follow the whole arc from start to finish.