Where the Heart Should Be

The Great Famine, The Great Hunger, The Irish Potato Famine. In 1845, Ireland experienced mass starvation and disease that lasted for seven years. Nell is sixteen and begins working as a scullery maid in the kitchen of The Big House owned by English Lord Wicken. She has strict instructions to never leave the kitchen, to be seen and not heard. Nell is smart, was the top of her class, but as a daughter of a poor farming family there was never an option to be more than a servant. When her father’s crops fail, her paltry earnings are all the family has to live on. Nell meets Johnny and she cannot take her eyes off of him. He is Wickens nephew and future heir. Narrated by this kind and beautiful girl, we witness families losing their homes, losing their children and all hope for the future. While Nell works in the landlord’s home she witnesses how the English respond to this catastrophe, how even their beloved church was helpless to offer assistance. In the most unconventional and original prose I have ever read, this YA historical novel is told in verse. A lyrical journey describing one of the darkest times in history through the eyes of a young girl who is heartbreakingly losing everything at the same time she is also falling in love. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

It is hard to describe

reading narrative verse

If you have never tried

You will be mesmerized

by words

by poetry

and will not stop reading

Until the very last page.