The 27th Kingdom

Baker & Taylor
Valentine, a young Catholic postulant with miraculous powers, is sent by her Mother Superior to test her vocation with the Mother Superior's sister, Irene, an eccentric exile from the Ukraine, now living in a a colorful Chelsea neighborhood

Blackwell North Amer
The Roman Catholic Russian ancestors of Aunt Irene, the central character in Alice Thomas Ellis's new novel, were persecuted and forced to flee to Ukraine, Lithuania, Austria "or as the story-tellers would have it, across 27 lands and 30 countries until they came to the 27th Kingdom."
For the good, kind and infinitely friendly Aunt Irene, her handsome but wicked nephew, Kyril, and Focus, a cat of alarming intelligence, this is "Dancing Master House," a minute dwelling in the Chelsea of the 1950's, with its motley assortment of antique dealers, criminals and "chars." Two of these gossiping women, Mrs. O'Connor and Mrs. Mason, one "dead common" with criminal connections, the other an impoverished lady of the upper classes, clean for and take care of the needs of Aunt Irene and Kyril.
From Wales, Irene's sister, the Mother Superior, sends Valentine, a beautiful young West Indian postulant, ostensibly "to test her vocation" but really because of the embarrassing discovery that Valentine has miraculous powers.
The adventures of this strangely disparate group of people, stalked by an official trying to collect Aunt Irene's unpaid income tax, provide the basis for a story about angels and demons in a style which epitomizes the refreshing eccentricities of English humor.