Where the Heart Should Be: The Times Children's Book of the Week

Sarah Crossan

‘A beautiful, perfect, moving read’ – Cecelia Ahern, author of PS, I Love You

The outstanding novel from the Carnegie Medal-winning, former Laureate na nÓg Sarah Crossan; thought-provoking and incredibly moving, it explores love and family during The Great Hunger.

Ireland, 1846. 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.

‘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