Where the Heart Should Be

Get in the xigxag app
This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.
Pre-order Buy Now £{{ price }}
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

‘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

Critics Review

  • One of our finest novelists. Where the Heart Should Be is a thing of beauty.

    Phil Earle

  • Sarah Crossan’s writing is powerful and necessary

    Matt Goodfellow

  • A tour de force from Sarah Crossan

    Patricia Forde, Laureate na nÓg

  • Where the Heart Should Be thrums with longing, beauty, loss and strength.

    Katya Balen

  • PRAISE FOR TOFFEE: “Utterly Sublime”, – Cecelia Ahern, “Impossible not to read it in a single gulp” – The Times, “Undoubtedly one of the best books of the year” – Irish Times, “Compelling and beautifully wrought” – The Sunday Times, “A book that changes its reader for the better” – The Guardian, “One of our most original writers” – John Boyne

  • PRAISE FOR ONE: “The best book I’ve read in years. It’s a spectacular testament to love. It blows your head back” – Katherine Rundell

More from the same

Author

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.