Ellen Duncan; and the Proctor's Daughter: The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two

In rural Ireland, a wrongfully accused man and the daughter of his supposed victim become unlikely threads in the same tapestry of justice and mercy. Ellen Duncan watches helplessly as her good-natured husband Owen is dragged into prison, suspected of murdering a local proctor whose death has stirred up the entire countryside. The flawed justice system of 19th-century Ireland offers no comfort to a woman whose only crime is loving an innocent man. But as Ellen fights to clear Owen's name, she discovers an unexpected ally in Minny Whelan, the Proctor's Daughter, whose compassion becomes the key to a resolution no one saw coming. Carleton, the great chronicler of Irish rural life, weaves together two stories of sacrifice and stubborn hope into a novel that argues kindness can bloom even in the shadow of the gallows. This is fiction that remembers how ordinary people survive extraordinary injustice, and it lingers long after the final page.