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"[A] fascinating historical novel…The Good People has great characters, a setting that seeps into your bones and the always compelling tug between the spiritual and the superstitious.
— USA Today (3½ stars out of 4 stars)
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“Kent’s suspenseful storytelling…brings vivid life to the hardscrabble scenes: dingy cabins and backbreaking work and the grim hiring fairs where poor children sell their labor to less poor people…Although The Good People is fiction, it faithfully represents the hold of ancient Celtic myths on generations of Irish. It also lays bare some hard truths about human nature.”
— Minneapolis Star-Tribune
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“Kent brings the ruggedly beautiful landscape of County Kerry to life with evocative, lyrical prose that transports readers into a world where superstition reigns above science.”
— RT Book Reviews (4 stars)
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Ms. Kent has a knack for conjuring the unsettled spirit world through deft stylistic flourishes...THE GOOD PEOPLE is far from a high-handed condemnation of superstitious belief. It makes the terrors of the past feel palpable and imminent. It makes you reach for whatever good luck charms you carry with you.
— Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
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Rural pre-famine Ireland in all its beauty and desolation is alive on
every page of this exquisite novel...'The Good People' is a dramatic tale of
desperation, set in a bleak time and place when no amount of protective ritual
and belief - or goodness - can rescue people from their circumstances.
— Katherine Weber, The New York Times Book Review
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Kent's suspenseful storytelling plunges readers into
early 19th-century Ireland. She brings vivid life to the hardscrabble
scenes...Although 'The Good People' is fiction, it faithfully represents the hold
of ancient Celtic myths on generations of Irish.
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
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If Stevie Wonder is correct, when you believe in
things you don't understand, then you suffer. Kent's novel validates his
indictment of superstition.
— Kirkus
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Faith, folk-knowledge, and fear coalesce in remote 19th-century
Ireland in this second novel from Kent...Though rife with description, backstory,
and a surfeit of gossip, the book's pervasive sense of foreboding and clear
narrative arcs keep the tale immersive. Kent leads the reader on a rocky,
disquieting journey to the misty crossroads of Irish folk beliefs past and
future.—Publisher's Weekly
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Kent brings her talent for writing dark and atmospheric historical fiction to this tale set in rural Ireland in 1825... Kent's immersive setting, benefiting from impressive historical research and the use of Gaelic vocabulary, features both a dramatically alive natural world and a believably fearsome supernatural one. Inspired by true events and exploring those places where reason, religion, and superstition cross paths, this will please lovers of haunting literary fiction.
— Booklist
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Kent has a terrific feel for the language of her setting..This is a serious and compelling novel about those in desperate circumstances cling to ritual as a bulwark against their own powerlessness.
— The Guardian
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Taking its inspiration from newspaper reports of a real court case in County Kerry in 1826, THE GOOD PEOPLE is an even better novel than Burial Rites-a starkly realized tale of love, grief and misconceived beliefs.
— The Sunday Times UK
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Kent has a wonderful talent for taking fragments of historical facts and breathing life into them through her fiction. She has matched her debut with another disturbing and haunting novel.
— Sunday Herald
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The novel is thrillingly alive to the dynamic of poor, close-knit communities, where fear of the outsider trumps reason and compassion.
— Metro
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An intricate, heartbreaking portrayal of three women and the conflict between religious belief and folklore.
— Stylist
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An imaginative tour-de-force that recreates a way of perceiving the world with extraordinary vividness...With its exquisite prose, this harrowing, haunting narrative of love and suffering is sure to be a prize-winner.
— Daily Mail
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Lyrical and unsettling, THE GOOD PEOPLE is a vivid account of the contradictions of life in rural Ireland in the 19th century. A literary novel with the pace and tension of a thriller, Hannah Kent takes us on a frightening journey towards an unspeakable tragedy. I am in awe of Kent's gifts as a storyteller."--Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
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THE GOOD PEOPLE is, like Burial Rites, a thoroughly engrossing entrée into the macabre nature of a vanished society, its virtues and its follies and its lethal impulses. THE GOOD PEOPLE takes us straight to a place utterly unexpected and believable, where amidst the earnest mayhem people impose on each other, there is no patronizing quaintness, but a compelling sense of the inevitability of solemn horrors.
— Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark and The Daughters of Mars
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Remarkable.... Kent displays an uncanny ability to immerse herself in an unfamiliar landscape and to give that landscape a life - a voice - that is utterly convincing.... A haunting novel, shrewdly conceived and beautifully written.
— The Australian
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The Good People breathes life into the mythologies of Irish folklore. It unfolds the story of two women desperate to reclaim what little power they can over lives touched with hopelessness and despair in a changing time.
— Shelf Awarness
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Kent skillfully depicts a world where anything
outside the norm falls under suspicion, particularly women who are not under
the protection of a man.
— Library Journal