Life Sentences

“Poignant....powerful.”—New York Times

One Irish family’s fight for survival makes for an unforgettable tale of love, abandonment, hunger, and redemption.

At just sixteen, Nancy Martin leaves the small island of Cape Clear for the mainland, the only member of her family to survive the effects of the Great Famine. Finding work in a grand house on the edge of Cork City, she is irrepressibly drawn to the charismatic gardener Michael Egan, sparking a love affair and a devastating chain of events...