Where the Heart Should Be

by Sarah Crossan

We’re in Ireland in 1846, the second year of the famine. Nell works as a scullery maid in the kitchen of the Big House. Johnny is the nephew, newly arrived from England, who will one day inherit it all. Somehow, Nell and Johnny find each other. But Johnny’s uncle will sack Nell on the spot if he finds out, and then her family will have nothing. And Johnny is part of a family that lets their tenant farmers starve to death, even as food gets exported to England. Is there any way in which Nell and Johnny’s love is possible? A very beautiful novel in verse.