The Good People (53 page)
Authors: Hannah Kent
Tags: #Fiction, #Family Life, #Historical, #Literary, #Small Town & Rural, #General
‘A story of swirling sagas, poetry, bitterness, claustrophobia . . . Holds an exhilaration that borders on the sublime.’
Sunday Telegraph
‘A debut of rare sophistication and beauty.’
Observer
‘A remarkably assured debut, takes a tale of crime and punishment in 1820s Iceland and through it opens a window, lit with hard brilliance, on an alien world.’
Independent
, Fiction Books of the Year
‘Exceptional’
Sunday Express
‘With language flickering, sparkling and flashing like the northern lights . . . A magical exercise in artful literary fiction.’
Kirkus
, starred review
‘Remarkable’
Sunday Times
‘Kent’s debut is assured, moving and incredibly well researched and written. It’s the perfect mix of literary and historical fiction, giving an insightful and empathetic look at a woman demonised in her lifetime.’
Bookseller
, Books of the Year
‘A thrillingly accomplished debut with a powerful sense of place.’
Metro
, Books of the Year
‘Rarely has a country’s starkness and extreme weather been rendered so exquisitely. The harshness of the landscape and the lifestyle of nineteenth-century Iceland, with its dank turf houses and meagre food supply, is as finely detailed as the heartbreak and tragedy of Agnes’ life . . . [A] haunting reading from a bright new talent.’
Booklist
, starred review
‘This is a golden age both of historical fiction and of crime writing. A rare novel that combines both, this is one of the most gripping, intriguing and unique books that I’ve read this year.’
KATE MOSSE
‘So gripping I wanted to rush through the pages, but so beautifully written I wanted to linger over every sentence.’
MADELINE MILLER
, Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction
‘
Burial Rites
is an accomplished gem, its prose as crisp and sparkling as its northern setting.’
GERALDINE BROOKS
‘This compelling, ripped-from-real-life tale reminds me of Margaret Atwood’s
Alias Grace
.’
KARIN SLAUGHTER
This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
First published 2016 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Hannah Kent 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
EPUB format: 9781925483789
Typeset by Post Pre-Press Group Australia
Internal text design by Sandy Cull
Cartography by Pan Macmillan Australia
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER TWELVE: GERMANDER SPEEDWELL
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DEVIL’S-BIT SCABIOUS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: HART’S TONGUE
