The much-anticipated third novel from Hannah Kent, award-winning author of Burial Rites and The Good People.

‘Devotion is utterly original. A glorious, heartbreaking love story of infinite beauty.’ – Heather Rose

‘Hannah Kent’s latest novel is stunning – full of magic and adventure. I fell in love with language again reading it. So beautiful and so raw. Devotion is impossibly good.’ – Evie Wyld

‘Such a glorious love story. And the poetry of the landscape had, for me, a Whitmanesque sensibility. A mighty impassioned cry to love and the land.’ – Sarah Winman

Prussia, 1836: Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature – she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity… until she meets Thea.

Ocean, 1838: The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God’s law and at odds with their King’s order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne’s heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break.

The whale passed. The music faded.

South Australia, 1838: A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible… is devotion.