Father Neil's Monkeyshines

All-new stories featuring the “wonderful, real, lovable characters” of St. Jude’s, in the series that inspired the beloved British sitcom Bless Me, Father (James Herriot).

Based on the author’s real-life experiences as a young clergyman, the five books in the Bless Me, Father series offer a sweet-natured, humorous look at Catholicism in the 1950s. Father Neil’s adventures at St. Jude’s parish in London with its raucous congregation full of Irish immigrants proved so popular they were adapted into a long-running British sitcom.

Now, in these eleven previously unpublished stories, readers have the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with young Father Neil, the irascible Father Duddleswell, the sharp-tongued housekeeper Mrs. Pring, and more colorful parishioners.

A young couple hoping to adopt twins gets more they bargained for; a foundling is abandoned like Moses—in a confessional; an honored infantry sergeant returns from the battlefield physically, emotionally, and spiritually scarred; a modern-thinking new curate creates a distraction by being far too handsome; and an unexpected new addition disrupts St. Jude’s: Mario the monkey, who can test the patience of a saint.

“Carry on, Father!” cheers the Dublin Evening Herald. And he does, with the same inspiring heavenly humor that has made Neil Boyd’s long-running series such “hilarious and compulsive reading” (Catholic Herald).