Sin Eater

No one can curse her. She's the curse! The volatile Henry VIII. promoted the Reformed faith in England the hard way, and so has the reign of his daughter, the virgin Queen Elizabeth I. called Bethany by the people - then on top of that, simple superstition. Fourteen-year-old May Owens feels it in her body and in her stomach when she is sentenced to practice the trade of a sin eater for stealing bread. It commands the consumption of precisely defined foods as a symbolic indulgence for the souls of the unwilling who have chosen to repent before death. The girl does have a decent meal here and there, but her ejection to the bottom of English society around 1570 is all the more cruel. The half-orphaned orphan, whose tongue has been branded with the S ("sin"), is worse off than the harlot, but she remains stone-faced and silent. But when she is secretly forced to devour a deer's heart for the shameful act of a palace maid, the silent rebel suddenly fights for her neck, for this sacrifice signifies the murder of a child of royalty! In order to find out more, May must cross the line and wait in places where even potentates walk... A juicy first novel by an American novelist depicts the grim dawn of the modern age, which did not treat women kindly. And that's why the heroine has nothing to lose. The only way to get it: because S stands for freedom.