Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

In 1829 Iceland, a woman named Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her role in a brutal double murder. With winter closing in and the execution delayed, she is sent to live out her final days on a remote farm with a district officer and his family.

As the household is drawn into her presence, truths begin to thaw — about the crime, the country, and the woman they thought they knew. Agnes, fierce and intelligent, tells her story with haunting clarity, revealing how a life can be shaped by love, betrayal, and survival in a land ruled by hardship and superstition.

Inspired by true events, Burial Rites is a breathtakingly atmospheric debut — a lyrical and devastating exploration of guilt, isolation, and the search for redemption at the edge of the world.