Thank you so, so much for the opportunity to read a copy of this novel early. Burial Rites remains one of my favourite books ever, and so when I saw that there was a magical realism element, I became slightly hesitant as it is not my preferred genre. However, Hannah pulled it off perfectly. It is so important to trust the author, and she rewarded the reader with a haunting and captivating tale. Highly recommend. An easy 5 stars.

Devotion is a heartachingly beautiful novel about love, told through the eyes of 15-year-old Hanne. Kent writes with lyrical prose and striking historical detail, and it reads like a dream.

I found the first half utterly captivating, although it does lose a little steam after that - mostly due to the slightly strange structure, which means the story beats don't always land in quite the right places. It's a novel to absorb slowly, one that you enjoy more for its exquisite descriptions than its plot.

Immersive and haunting, Devotion is a love-song in novel form.

This is the story of two girls who form a love bond. They both belong to a Lutheran group of Germans who journey to Australia so they can practice their religion in peace. This is based on a true fact but then it becomes strange when the narrator, Hanne, dies on the horrendous journey. She dies but lives on as a spirit and watches as the community start to make their lives. It is a story well told but there is too much lyrical description which I skipped.

This book is extraordinary. I now understand how important it is for me to trust an author. I am generally uncomfortable with magical realism and usually avoid books in which it plays a part. I knew nothing about this book before I read it however, other than it was written by Hannah Kent, both of whose previous novels, Burial Rites and The Good People, I loved. When this book’s storyline developed into magical realism therefore, I trusted Hannah Kent to take me with her on the journey and oh! What a journey it is!

The basis is the true story of the emigration of Prussian Lutherans to Australia to escape oppression in their homeland. In 1838, a group of around 100 Lutherans sailed for South Australia from Hamburg on the Kristi. They were ‘Old Lutherans’, those who rejected the Prussian King’s Reformed church and who were being penalised for continuing to worship in their own way. They left their villages in what is now Poland but was then Germany on a three week journey by road and canal to Hamburg. They were financed by a wealthy Scottish businessman, George Fife Angas, who was also Chair of the South Australian Company. A deeply religious man himself, he was impressed by these self sufficient people, mainly farmers, who were reputedly hard working and had high moral standards, and was sure that they would be assets in the development of South Australia. He gave them a good land deal and did everything he could to facilitate their journey.

Kent always champions the outsider. In this book, even though the Lutherans were being persecuted themselves for being different, they in turn treated a newly arrived family of Wends (Slavic background but same faith) as outsiders. Because Anna Maria is known to use herbs to heal, it is rumoured that she is a witch. Many shun her, her husband and their daughter, others go to her for healing and advice. The other outsiders are the native Australians towards whom the Lutherans were hostile, despite them helping the new immigrants to identify food to eat and water sources. They in turn would see the Lutherans as the outsiders. This theme aside, this is essentially a love story that begins when Thea, Anna Maria’s daughter, meets Hanne and their friendship blossoms into something much, much deeper.

I can’t emphasise strongly enough how beautiful the writing is. It’s impossible to choose just one passage as an example because the whole book sings with wonderful prose. I can’t imagine that Kent can write another book that I will enjoy as much as this but I willing to trust that she will. I also trust that it will be as well researched as all of her books have been.

With thanks to NetGalley and Pan McMillan for a review copy.

This book made me overly emotional.
Heartbreaking at times at others hopeful and happy.

It brought an actual tear to my eye,and that's a great recommendation as far as I'm concerned.

I believe its now my favourite book by this author.

I have read several books on the settling of Australia, about religious communities, about witch trials, and about forbidden love. This book stands apart as something truly special. Kent has a beautiful lyrical cadence to her writing
The descriptions of the natural world are vivid and humming with life. The main character, Hanne, recounts her story over a period of a few days. She is just a young girl on the cusp of womanhood when she first meets Thea. They form an instant bond and as their relationship develops we can also see the problems to come as they live in a very traditional religious community. The community are Lutheran followers living in Germany. They make the decision to leave for Australia where they will start afresh and be free to worship as they wish. The voyage and the hardships they suffer are graphically described. It is hard to describe the book without spoilers but I would highly recommend it as a fascinating read with some thought provoking questions at its core.

Ever since I read The Good People, way back in 2017, I’ve been anticipating Hannah Kent’s next release. And, while Burial Rites remains one of my all time favourites, I think it’s been pipped to the post as my favourite Hannah Kent by Devotion.

I think I knew that Devotion would be a five-star read for me from the first page. Hannah Kent’s writing is absolutely incomparable; for me, there’s no one better. In fact, everyone else should just quit now because they’ll never be able to reach her standard. (Any authors reading this, I am kidding. Mostly.) It’s the kind of writing that reaches inside you, rummages about for a bit, and comes out clutching your heart in its hands. Each sentence gently ripped me to shreds, put me back together again, and then repeated the process. I fully believe I’ll never read another book like this.

Part of that magic is in the way it evokes 1800s Prussia, the journey across the sea, and Australia, a foreign, and somewhat unfriendly, land to the characters of the book. The setting jumps off the page, it makes you feel as though you’re there alongside the characters, experiencing all that they are. You can feel the breeze through the trees in Prussia, hear the creaking of the ship, feel the heat of Australia—it all feels incredibly real.

That extends to the characters themselves too. Even the side characters feel wholly authentic and believable. They all have distinct personalities and, by the end, you feel as though you know them all intimately. And, of course, for no one is this clearer than for the main characters—Hanne and Thea. They’re the kind of characters that stick with you for a long while after you’ve finished reading, so vibrant that they are. When I think back to this book, it’s these two characters who I’ll be thinking about.

On top of all this, these are two sapphic characters who aren’t defined by the tragedies they go through. As in, this is the kind of story that doesn’t make the characters solely about their pain. Yes, they face pain—after all, it’s a book by Hannah Kent. It was inevitable—but it’s very much in the same way as straight characters might experience that pain. If I’m making any sense whatsoever. It’s saying, look this is a bittersweet story that happens between these two people, it just so happens they’re gay. As well as this, it treats their love reverently, as something precious and beautiful, to be guarded with care.

And it is, in all, a beautiful book.

I debated for ages whether to give this 3 or 4 stars, and I would give 3.5 if I could.

I loved Kent's first book 'Burial Rites' and, while her second book 'The Good People' didn't captivate me quite as much, both had powerful narrative drives with a mystery at the heart of them. 'Devotion' is a very different kind of book, without a mystery, but what disappointed me was that the plot felt completely in service to the prose. The book came to 430 pages on my e-reader and could easily have been 100 pages shorter by cutting down on repetitive writing and the interludes in the narrator's present day which add nothing to the story (with the exception of the scene with the two men in the cabin, but that could've been folded into the main narrative). While Kent's prose is undoubtedly beautiful, it also felt cluttered here.

That aside, the reason I've gone for 4 rather than 3 stars is the tender and poignant portrayal of the relationships between Hanne and other characters - not just her love, Thea, but also her brother, her father, her mother, and her friend Hans. This is where the book's heart lies, not in how many times the author could weave the word "song" into artistic sentences.

The unfolding of the story surprised me in a good way. However, the climax is oddly very similar to that in The Lovely Bones, and I'll be interested to see how many other readers pick up on that too.

To conclude - readers who prefer language over story will love this book the most.

(With thanks to Picador and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)

This is such a beautifully written book and a beautiful premise of a story. As with all of Hannah Kents books there is a fresh rawness between the pages and i was beguiled from beginning to end

This has to be one of the most moving, powerful and stunningly written stories I have ever read. The imagery and eloquence of the writing will stay with me for a long, long time. Burial Rites is one of my all time favourite books, but this new novel has surpassed even that. Devotion comes in all forms and Hannah has captured every possible nuance of meaning in this deceptively simple word. Just breathtaking and achingly beautiful.