Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent – Our Review

WINNER 2026 INDIE BOOK AWARDS FOR NON-FICTION

Our Review…

Outstanding author Hannah Kent is such a brilliant writer, and her books bring a comfort in a way that I never knew I needed. I absolutely adored this book and was drawn in by the exquisite cover to a truly beautiful memoir.

In, 2003, Hannah is selected for an exchange student program and leaves the comforts of Australia to arrive in Iceland amid an unimaginable Icelandic winter. At just seventeen years of age, this is Hannah’s first experience of travelling and exploration.

Many years later, Hannah will return to Iceland to write her deeply regarded novel Burial Rites, a retelling of the story of Agnes Magnusdottir, the final woman to be executed in Iceland.

Always Home, Always Homesick is an ode to this time in her life and is a magical reflection on storytelling, experiences that shape us and the power and wonder of the world and people around us.

I highly recommend this memoir; it is deeply moving piece and reminds me to go and reread Burial Rites!

Review by Lydia @ Great Escape Books