by Carol Birch
First published 2005
An American woman inherits a derelict cottage in Cork that has stood empty for four decades. When she explores the property, she discovers the bones of a three-year-old child hidden in the hollow of an ancient oak tree. Local research reveals the cottage once belonged to the Quinn family, and the bones are those of their daughter Eliza Quinn, who died during Ireland's great potato famine of the mid-1800s. The discovery connects two time periods separated by more than a century. In the 1840s, the Quinn family faces starvation as the potato crop fails and their community disintegrates around them. Villages empty as death and emigration reduce Ireland's population by two and a half million people in less than ten years. The story moves between past and present, exploring how hunger shapes both body and spirit. Carol Birch weaves together the fates of those who stayed and those who left, showing how the land itself holds memory in its abandoned potato ridges and unmarked graves.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, 21st-century, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: dual-timeline, found-family, past-and-present
Setting: Cork, Ireland
Period: 1840s, Mid-1800s
343 pages · Hardcover · VIRAGO (LITT)
Content warnings: death