Created for Love: Towards a new teaching on sex and marriage, edited by Theo Hobson and John Inge (Canterbury Press, £17.99 (Church Times SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £14.39); 978-1-78622-669-3).

“A sparkling array of leading thinkers and writers in the Church of England bring scripture, doctrine, tradition and pastoral theology into conversation with culture and lived experience to frame a new understanding of sex and marriage that is both faithful to the past and embracing of the present, and counters accusations of an ‘anything goes liberalism’ by conservative opponents. Moving beyond the default arguments and the use of scriptures to shore up fixed positions, it offers a welcoming space grounded in theological understanding.”

Till Death Us Do Part by Penny Stephens (Quercus, £16.99 (£13.59); 978-1-52944-142-0).

“Reverend Clare Brakespear is used to a challenge. With a young family to wrangle, a parish to manage and a particularly excitable Golden Retriever by her side, life is never dull. But when she attends a wedding where one of the guests is fatally stabbed with a cake knife, even Clare admits that she might have been given too much to handle this time. As the police investigate the murder, they zero-in on one woman as their prime suspect, who they believe had the motive, means and opportunity to commit the crime. The trouble is, Clare is convinced that they have the wrong person. She might not understand forensic testing and finger-tip searches, but if there's one thing Clare does know, it's people and the complexities of their emotional lives. So she decides to take matters into her own hands.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Exception by Kevin O’Farrell (T & T Clark, £28.99 (£26.09); 978-0-567-70944-8). New in paperback

“Engaging with the many debates about the meaning and character of Bonhoeffer’s late resistance theology and action, particularly as it relates to his participation in the attempted coup d'état against Hitler, this book attends to Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the exception. Resisting the common reduction of the exception to a political or ethical concept, O'Farrell argues that the exception for Bonhoeffer is an extraordinary moment in history that disarms persons, impinging on one’s understanding of politics and ethics.”


Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.