DEVOTION | Hannah Kent

Equal parts beautiful and devastating, Hannah Kent's Devotion is a story that will haunt me for a long, long time.

Hanne is… strange. She can hear songs from the earth and the trees. In her small Lutheran community, she is a loner – none of the other young people, especially the other girls, want to be her friend.

Until Thea and her family move to the town. Suddenly, Hanne is seen and understood in a way she has never experienced before. In no time at all, Hanne and Thea are thick as thieves, completely devoted to one another; two halves of the same whole. Nothing and no one can tear them apart.

But there’s a dangerous journey ahead, not only for Hanne and Thea, but for their whole community, and nothing in their life is guaranteed.

I don’t want to go into too much more detail than that, because anything beyond is spoiler territory, but please know that Devotion is so much more than I expected. If you loved and were moved by The Song of Achilles, I think Devotion will be your next favourite.

Kent has crafted such a beautiful, poetic, and raw story about the power and vulnerability and magic of love, and it has truly struck me to my core. This book has ruined me. I think I cried for at least a full half an hour when I finished it. I keep finding my thoughts drifting to Hanne and Thea, and I know this book will be on my mind for a long while yet.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with an ARC of this book.