Owen begs for the chickens’ lives and then for the goat’s. However, there’s nothing to be done. The potatoes are rotting, the stench and disease constant and spreading. There is no harvest. There is no food. However, rent to the Big House will need to be paid. While Nell’s employed there as a scullery maid, there’s some income. Then again, there’s no work for Nell’s Daddy. It seems every man seeks the same job for lower and lower rates. Meanwhile, the land they work upon is pulled out from under them, owned by the English landowners who seem impervious to the suffering of their Irish tenants. What is to be done? While Nell works, she becomes aware of Lord Wicken’s nephew and heir. He seems ill at ease with the privilege of the Big House. It seems he’s a dreamer, an artist, despite the harsh denial of these persuasions by his uncle. It means he’s reduced to whittling. When he presents Nell with a carving he’s made of her, his feelings are clear. However, what is to be done? A scullery maid and English gentry are on entirely different sides. While Nell’s community is scrabbling to find anything to eat, even from the seashore rocks, there’s champagne at the Big House. While the Big House plans to rid itself of its tenants, they are raging… and dying. Award winning novelist Sarah Crossan expands upon The Great Famine through a searing, aching verse novel, Where the Heart Should Be. This book is brilliantly researched, felt and shown. Bookwagon welcomes it aboard. What’s more, we recommend Where the Heart Should Be to all older, teen, mature readers. Times Book of the Week
