Publisher's Synopsis
Liz Berry has given the world another ground-breaking collection of poems. These verses are sensitive and tender, yet the language is real and unflinching. ― Benjamin Zephaniah
An extraordinary work of imagination . . . Poetic virtuosity is combined with novelistic story-telling as we follow the unfolding fate of Eliza Showell . . . An exquisite book. ― Hannah Lowe
A triumph. A novel in verse, an elegy, a profound act of witness . . . Eliza is brought to such tangible and complex life I feel as though I've met her ― Luke Kennard
'Home's not a place, you must believe this,
but one who names you and means beloved.'
In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia. She will never return to Britain or see her family again. She is a Home Child, one of thousands of British children sent to Canada to work as indentured farm labourers and domestic servants.
In Nova Scotia, Eliza's world becomes a place where ordinary things are transfigured into treasures - a red ribbon, the feel of a foal's mane, the sound of her name on someone else's lips. With nothing to call her own, the wild beauty of Cape Breton is the only solace Eliza has - until another Home Child, a boy, comes to the farm and changes everything.
Inspired by the true story of Liz Berry's great aunt, this spellbinding novel in verse is an exquisite portrait of a girl far from home.
'A haunting, deeply compelling narrative' - Andrew McMillan
'Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems' - Fiona Benson
