After five years cloistered in silence, Niall O’Malley has left the monastery behind, but peace won’t let him go. Now a high school history teacher in gritty New Jersey, he finds purpose in the classroom—until a volatile student with dangerous views threatens more than just order. At home, his girlfriend pushes for a shared life with her daughter and aging mother, but Niall, still haunted by his past and the abuse he endured as a monk, finds himself unraveling.

Desperate for clarity, he returns to the monastery he once fled, where his former tormentor, Brother Thomas, is now dying of ALS. What awaits is not peace, but a reckoning.

The Bells is a gripping and lyrical exploration of faith, failure, and the elusive road to forgiveness. It is the final novel from celebrated author Cai Emmons, submitted on the day she died—a luminous and courageous parting gift from one of our most thoughtful literary voices.