The Good People

From 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.

**Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize./b>b>Based on true events and set in a lost world bound by its own laws, The Good People is Hannah Kent's startling novel about absolute belief and devoted love. Terrifying, thrilling and moving in equal measure, this long-awaited follow-up to Burial Rites shows an author at the height of her powers./b>b>/b>County Kerry, Ireland, 1825. Nora, bereft after the sudden death of her beloved husband, finds herself alone and caring for her young grandson Micheal. Micheal cannot speak and cannot walk and Nora 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 Nora just as the whispers are spreading: the stories of unexplained misfortunes, of illnesses, and the rumours that Micheal is a changeling child who is bringing bad luck to the valley. Nance's knowledge keeps her apart. To the new priest, she is a threat, but to the valley people she is a wanderer, a healer. Nance 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 Micheal. As these three women are drawn together in the hope of restoring Micheal, 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.

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 rhythm

Préface
From 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.

Auteur

Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. She is the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award. She is the author of Burial Rites, The Good People and Devotion.

Texte du rabat

'Exceptional . . . Even better than Burial Rites' Sunday Times

In rural Ireland, 1825, three women gather to save a child.

It all begins with rumours: stories of unexplained misfortunes. Nóra, mourning the deaths of her husband and daughter, knows the whispers are about her grandson. Four-year-old Micheál can no longer speak or walk, and people are saying that he is a changeling, bringing bad luck to the valley.

In desperation Nóra begs the help of two others, Mary and Nance. Together, the women will do anything to cure the little boy, but as their world of folklore and ritual tightens around them, it threatens to blur the line between mercy and murder . . .

'An imaginative tour de force . . . exquisite' Daily Mail

'Beautifully written' Grazia

'Hauntingly poetic and evocative' Daily Express

'Immersive, startlingly lyrical . . . thrillingly alive' Metro

'Evocative . . . compelling' Guardian

Résumé
From 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.