Burial Rites — Hannah Kent

With Iceland's stark landscape as her backdrop, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life . . the story of Agnes, a woman charged with the brutal murder of her master in 1828 and sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family on the farm at first avoids Agnes. Only Tod, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian. seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and his daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends on the stories told by others?