Exceptional . . .
The Good People is an even better novel than
Burial Rites ‰ÛÓ
a starkly realised tale of love, grief and misconceived beliefsLyrical and
unsettling . . . A literary novel with the
pace and tension of a thriller . . . I am in awe of Kent's gifts as a storyteller.
An imaginative tour-de-force that recreates a way of perceiving the world with
extraordinary vividness . . . With its
exquisite prose, this
harrowing, haunting narrative of love and suffering is sure to be a prize-winnerKent has a
terrific feel for the language of her setting. The prose is
richly textured with evocative vocabulary . . . A serious and
compelling novel about how those in desperate circumstances cling to ritual as a bulwark against their own powerlessnessHannah Kent's second novel is a thorough study of the faiths and rituals of a rural community, as well as
a poignant portrayal of griefThe Good People lies somewhere between Andrew Michael Hurley's gothic
The Loney and Emma Donoghue's
The Wonder . . .
an absorbing and imaginative novel about superstition and the old waysA thoroughly
engrossing entr̩e into the macabre nature of a vanished society, its virtues and its follies and its lethal impulses . . .
utterly unexpected Beautiful . . . the setting and the characters drew me in immediately and
kept me completely absorbedAn
immersive, startlingly lyrical portrait of a time when the borders between logic and superstition were dangerously porous . . .
thrillingly aliveRemarkable . . . Kent displays an uncanny ability to immerse herself in an unfamiliar landscape and to give that landscape a life - a voice - that is utterly convincing . . .
a haunting novel, shrewdly conceived and beautifully writtenA sensitively drawn tale of love, grief, and terrible loss
The Good People is a sensitively drawn tale of love, grief, and terrible loss, set in a tiny Irish village in the early 19th century . . . filled with descriptions of ritual and rhythmFrom Hannah Kent, the bestselling author of
Burial Rites, comes
The Good People, set in nineteenth-century Ireland and based on newspaper reports and a court case from the time.
**Devotion, the new novel from Hannah Kent, is out now!**
'Exquisite' ‰ÛÒ Daily Mail
Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize
One woman's mercy is another's murder . . .
Ireland, 1825. NÌ?ra, bereft after the sudden death of her husband, finds herself alone and caring for her young grandson MicheÌÁl. MicheÌÁl cannot speak or walk and NÌ?ra is desperate to know what is wrong with him. What happened to the healthy, happy grandson she met when her daughter was still alive?
Mary arrives in the valley to help NÌ?ra just as the whispers are spreading: stories of unexplained misfortunes, of illnesses, and rumours that MicheÌÁl is a changeling child who is bringing bad luck to the valley. Nance has lived in the valley all of her life. She is a healer who knows how to use the plants and berries of the woodland; she understands the magic in the old ways. And she might be able to help MicheÌÁl . . .
As these three women are drawn together in the hope of restoring MicheÌÁl, their world of folklore and belief, of ritual and stories, tightens around them. It will lead them down a dangerous path, and force them to question everything they have ever known.
'A starkly realised tale of love, grief and misconceived beliefs' ‰ÛÒ Sunday Times
'An imaginative tour de force . . . exquisite' ‰ÛÒ Daily Mail
Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. Her first novel,
Burial Rites, has been translated into nearly thirty languages and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), the
Guardian First Book Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In Australia it won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier's People's Choice Award, amongst others. Hannah is also the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal
Kill Your Darlings.
The Good People is her second novel.
