The Friday Gospels

It's Friday in the Leeke household, but this is no ordinary Friday and the Leekes are a little unusual: they are Lancastrian Mormons, and this evening their son Gary will return from 2 years as a missionary in Salt Lake City.

His mother is planning a celebratory dinner - with difficulty, since she's virtually housebound with an undiagnosed, embarrassing condition. What she doesn't realise is that the rest of the family - her meek husband, disturbed oldest son, and teenage daughter - have other plans for the evening, each involving drastic and irrevocable action.

As the narrative baton passes from one Leeke to the next, disaster inexorably looms. Except that nothing goes according to plan, and the outcome is as unexpected as it is shocking. Giving a fascinating insight into the Mormon way of life, this blackly funny tale of innocence betrayed shows the havoc religion can wreak.

“Utterly, compulsively readable, [it] could be this award-winning young author's best novel yet. - The Sunday Times A serious, distinctive and eminently readable story of faith and family; about the demands of the world and the desires of the individual. - Independent on Sunday Ashworth's most confident work yet and one that strengthens her reputation as an author worth watching. - Sunday Telegraph A serious novel seriously engaged with big themes. It is also very funny. - Andrew Miller, author of PUREIt is rare to find a novel that is so complex, so damn clever and yet at once readable... a truly exceptional novel. - Helen Walsh, author of BRASSJenn Ashworth's The Friday Gospels will make a nicely unsettling poolside read. Brought up in a Mormon family, here she turns her fictional talents to the Church of Latter-day Saints, both its dark and its hilarious sides. - Observer - Mary Beard, Summer ReadsGrim and comic in equal measures, this is an acutely observer account of growing up as a Latter-day Saint in Lancashire - ObserverAshworth's darkly comic third novel concerns the unravelling of a close-knit Mormon family in Lancashire, and evolves into a sympathetic, forgiving and absorbing portrait of family life. - Daily Telegraph”

Utterly, compulsively readable, [it] could be this award-winning young author's best novel yet. - The Sunday Times

A serious, distinctive and eminently readable story of faith and family; about the demands of the world and the desires of the individual. - Independent on Sunday

Ashworth's most confident work yet and one that strengthens her reputation as an author worth watching. - Sunday Telegraph

A serious novel seriously engaged with big themes. It is also very funny. - Andrew Miller, author of PURE

It is rare to find a novel that is so complex, so damn clever and yet at once readable... a truly exceptional novel. - Helen Walsh, author of BRASS

Jenn Ashworth's The Friday Gospels will make a nicely unsettling poolside read. Brought up in a Mormon family, here she turns her fictional talents to the Church of Latter-day Saints, both its dark and its hilarious sides. - Observer - Mary Beard, Summer Reads

Grim and comic in equal measures, this is an acutely observer account of growing up as a Latter-day Saint in Lancashire - Observer

Ashworth's darkly comic third novel concerns the unravelling of a close-knit Mormon family in Lancashire, and evolves into a sympathetic, forgiving and absorbing portrait of family life. - Daily Telegraph

Jenn Ashworth was born in 1982. Her first novel, A KIND OF INTIMACY was published in 2009 and won a Betty Trask Award. COLD LIGHT, her second novel was published in 2011 to critical acclaim. She lives in Preston, Lancashire with her family and writes an award-winning blog at

It's Friday in the Leeke household, but this is no ordinary Friday and the Leekes are a little unusual: they are Lancastrian Mormons, and this evening their son Gary will return from 2 years as a missionary in Salt Lake City.His mother is planning a celebratory dinner - with difficulty, since she's virtually housebound with an undiagnosed, embarrassing condition. What she doesn't realise is that the rest of the family - her meek husband, disturbed oldest son, and teenage daughter - have other plans for the evening, each involving drastic and irrevocable action.As the narrative baton passes from one Leeke to the next, disaster inexorably looms. Except that nothing goes according to plan, and the outcome is as unexpected as it is shocking. Giving a fascinating insight into the Mormon way of life, this blackly funny tale of innocence betrayed shows the havoc religion can wreak.

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