Where The Heart Should be

A heartbreaking and powerful love story set in verse about a young Irish girl and British boy set in 1800’s Ireland at a time when the country was gripped by a famine. 

What was the Great Potato Famine?

The Great Irish Famine began in 1845 when a fungus, Phytophthora infestans, spread throughout Ireland, ruining up to a half of the potato crop that year and the following year again. The ruling British government failed to properly assist and tensions between the Irish and the British were high, especially since food continued to be exported from Ireland to Britain, even as its people were starving.

When Nell is forced to work as a scullery maid for the British landlord who owns her family’s farm, she falls in love with the British heir to his land. Watching the dogs eating leftover meat while her friends and neighbours starve makes Nell resentful, but alongside this is her growing relationship with Johnny, who is battling his own issues with his abusive uncle. Can their romance stay hidden during the devastating famine?

Nell is torn by her loyalties – she has to balance doing everything she can to keep her family together and everyone she loves alive, while still following her heart. 

A free-verse novel

This is Carnegie Medal winner Sarah Crossan’s first historical novel-in-verse. Despite being uncertain about reading a whole book in verse – the style actually added to my enjoyment, feeling like an intimate diary I just couldn’t put down. She writes beautifully and I demolished the book in one evening.  Free-verse is more than a poem, it allows drama, poetry, introspection, pace and insight. It’s also very powerful in that whichever words are selected, stand out and are amplified because of the sparseness of the text.  

There’s an absorbing sense of time and history mixed with the joy of love against the heartbreaking reality of 1800’s Ireland. It’s hard to imagine facing so much death and suffering without a war, but Crossan’s book brings it to life, teaching a new generation about the injustices of the past.  

Where the Heart Should Be is a mesmerising, suspenseful and heartbreaking story of love, family, and the forces that can destroy us or bind us forever. 

It is hard to tell a love story

and also the story of a people

being torn apart.