Where the Heart Should Be

Ireland, 1847 In the kitchen of the Big House, among the pots and pans and mess, Nell is working as a scullery maid. Once she loved school and books and dreaming. But there's not much choice of work when the land you live on grows food that rots in the earth. Now she is scrubbing, peeling, washing, sweeping for Sir John 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.