James E. Thompson

St Mary's has never lacked for enemies, but danger has never been closer to home. A state of war has broken out between St Mary's and the Women's Institute - the Raffia Mafia. Markham, Max, Peterson and Miss Sykes must jump to Restoration London in search of real Christmas pie - the honour of St Mary's is at stake. At least that how it all begins, but this is St Mary's after all.

Once the Church of God Awaiting dominated all the kingdoms of Safehold. Then, after centuries of stasis, the island kingdom of Charis began to defy the edicts of Mother Church—egged on, some say, by the mysterious warrior-monk Merlin Athrawes, who enjoys the Charisian royal family's absolute trust. What vanishingly few people know is that Merlin is the cybernetic avatar of a young woman a thousand years dead, felled in the war in which aliens destroyed Earth...and that since awakening, his task has been to restart the history of the long-hidden human race.