Where the Heart Should Be by Sarah Crossan

£14.99

Nell is working as a scullery maid in the kitchen of the Big House.

Once she loved school and books and dreaming. But there's not much choice of work when the land grows food that rots in the earth. Now she is scrubbing, peeling, washing, sweeping for Sir Philip Wicken, the man who owns her home, her family's land, their crops, everything.

His dogs are always well fed, even as famine sets in. Upstairs in the Big House, where Nell is forbidden to enter, is Johnny Browning, newly arrived from England: the young nephew who will one day inherit it all. And as hunger and disease run rampant all around them, a spark of life and hope catches light when Nell and Johnny find each other.

This is a love story, and the story of a people being torn apart. This is a powerful and unforgettable novel from the phenomenally talented Sarah Crossan.

Nell is working as a scullery maid in the kitchen of the Big House.

Once she loved school and books and dreaming. But there's not much choice of work when the land grows food that rots in the earth. Now she is scrubbing, peeling, washing, sweeping for Sir Philip Wicken, the man who owns her home, her family's land, their crops, everything.

His dogs are always well fed, even as famine sets in. Upstairs in the Big House, where Nell is forbidden to enter, is Johnny Browning, newly arrived from England: the young nephew who will one day inherit it all. And as hunger and disease run rampant all around them, a spark of life and hope catches light when Nell and Johnny find each other.

This is a love story, and the story of a people being torn apart. This is a powerful and unforgettable novel from the phenomenally talented Sarah Crossan.

About the Author 

Sarah Crossan grew up in Dublin and London. Her books for children and teenagers have won many prizes including the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal, the CBI Book of the Year, the YA Book Prize, and the CLiPPA Poetry Award. Her first novel for adults, Here Is The Beehive, was published in 2020 to critical acclaim, and was shortlisted for Popular Fiction Book of the Year in the AN Post Irish Book Awards Sarah’s novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She currently lives and works in East Sussex.

Praise for Where the Heart Should Be

'A beautifully written, tightly observed novel'
- The Times

'Irresistibly emotive'
– The Sunday Times

'Thrums with longing, beauty, loss and strength'
– Katya Balen, author of October, October

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Date Published: 14 March 2024

Hardback, 432 pages.

ISBN: 9781526666598

You Might Also Like