Devotion

Author Hannah Kent
Narrator Emily Wheaton
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Run Time 14 hours and 30 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Adventure fiction, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Coming of age, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Sense of place, Sea stories.

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What to expect

'A glorious love story' – Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

'Extraordinarily daring . . . a remarkable novel, an almost visionary celebration of the death-defying power of the women’s love' - Sunday Times, Book of the Year

From the bestselling author of Burial Rites and The Good People, Devotion is a stunning story of girlhood and friendship, faith and suspicion, and the impossible lengths we go to for the ones we love.

1836, Prussia. Hanne is nearly fifteen and the domestic world of womanhood is quickly closing in on her. A child of nature, she yearns instead for the rush of the river, the wind dancing around her. Hanne finds little comfort in the local girls and friendship doesn't come easily, until she meets Thea and she finds in her a kindred spirit and finally, acceptance.

Hanne's family are Old Lutherans, and in her small village hushed worship is done secretly - this is a community under threat. But when they are granted safe passage to Australia, the community rejoices: at last a place they can pray without fear, a permanent home. Freedom.

It's a promise of freedom that will have devastating consequences for Hanne and Thea, but, on that long and brutal journey, their bond proves too strong for even nature to break . . .

'Exquisite . . . it's taken root in my heart' – Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies

'So beautiful and so raw . . . Impossibly good' – Evie Wyld, author of The Bass Rock

Critics Review

Piercingly beautiful . . . [Hanne and Thea’s] story is an elegy, freighted with loss and longing
Guardian
Such a glorious love story. And the poetry of the landscape had, for me, a Whitmanesque sensibility. A mighty impassioned cry to love and the land
Sarah Winman, author of Still Life
Hannah Kent’s latest novel is stunning – full of magic and adventure. I fell in love with language again reading it. So beautiful and so raw. Devotion is impossibly good
Evie Wyld, author of The Bass Rock
With an extraordinarily daring twist halfway through its narrative Devotion is a remarkable novel, an almost visionary celebration of the death-defying power of the women’s love
Sunday Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Month
There’s a mesmerising, transcendent reverence for love and the land in Hannah Kent’s exquisitely-wrought novel . . . Passionate and poetic, Devotion is a slow burn of a novel, full of grace and emotional gravitas
Daily Mail
Devotion is rare and exquisite, both beautiful and muscular in its portrayal of love found and denied. It’s a story of love as a radical act, and a celebration of place and persistence. As we’ve come to expect from Kent, this is masterful storytelling with pull-no-punches stakes. It’s taken root in my heart
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
Absolutely stunning. The writing, the characters and the twist were just perfect. Any Hannah Kent novel is guaranteed to be powerful, moving and so imaginative, but this was something else. It is a story that will stay with me.
Elizabeth Macneal, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory and Circus of Wonders
A superb novel. A fantastic merging of exquisite lyrical writing and page-turning adventure. Devotion had me constantly surprised, always entertained, and ultimately deeply moved: it deserves to be a glittering success.
Emma Stonex, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lamplighters
Kent tells her heroine’s burgeoning love story beautifully
The Times
[A] marvellous queer love story
InDaily
A tale of the refiguring might of faithful hearts; of love that sustains and love that ruins; of exile and dominion
Sydney Morning Herald
It is a love story, ardent and wholesome, and it drapes its reader in lush historical detail. Fans will find a lot to savour
Guardian Australia
A poetic story of friendship, nature and what it means to step into a new world – both physically and spiritually
Cosmopolitan
Devotion, is nothing short of divine. Kent uses prose like a magician might use a wand. I could say so much about the depth and scope of this novel, its raw, powerful connection to nature and human emotion, and it still wouldn’t do it justice. Simply put, this is a beautiful book. A liturgy of love, full of grace and wonder.
Nydia Hetherington, author of A Girl Made of Air
Kent combines lyrical writing with a strong sense of place in this novel that takes us from a 19th-century Prussian village to the dusty plains of Australia
Good Housekeeping
One of my favourite reads of the year . . . While there is great sadness and hardship here, this surprising novel is ultimately about beauty, nature and an epic love. I adored it
ABC Arts
Draped in rich historical detail, Hannah Kent’s luminous and poignant story explores kindred spirits and an epic search for freedom
Woman's Own
Devotion is utterly original. A glorious heartbreaking love story of infinite beauty
Heather Rose, author of The Museum of Modern Love
A modern classic, on par with heart wrenching love stories such as Wuthering Heights and Pride And Prejudice. It tells the story of an achingly beautiful love and a brutal search for freedom . . . A moving tale with a breathtaking twist
The Herald
Exceptional . . . there are not many novelists writing today who can conjure a European past as vividly as Hannah Kent . . . she is a master at immersing the reader in a particular place and a particular period, specialising in stories of women on the margins trapped in close-knit communities and claustrophobic situations
New European

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