Miss Emily

Ada Concannon is eighteen and newly hired as a maid by the Dickinson family of Amherst, Massachusetts. The household is respected in town and considered eccentric. Ada is Irish, and she has to learn its ways quickly.

The daughter she grows closest to is Miss Emily, the gifted elder girl, who lives at home as a spinster. Emily is many years older and sits on the other side of the upstairs-downstairs divide, yet the two women form a deep friendship.

Emily's devotion to words is taking over her life. She wears only white and keeps away from the world beyond the Dickinson homestead. Then Ada's safety and reputation come under threat, and Emily has to face her own demons to help her friend. The consequences are shocking.

This is historical fiction that reimagines the private life of the poet Emily Dickinson. The narration alternates between Emily's own voice and Ada's view of the family, so the reader sees the poet both from inside and from the servants' side of the house. It is an Irish writer's first novel set in America, and it centres on a friendship across class lines.