The Dwelling Place

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In the 1830s, cholera kills Cissie Brodie’s parents and leaves the fifteen-year-old responsible for nine younger children. Evicted from the family cottage and determined to avoid the workhouse, she constructs a rough stone shelter that becomes the Brodies’ dwelling place and the centre of their struggle to remain together.

Poverty, hostile neighbours and the limits of charity continually threaten the household. Cissie’s strength keeps the family alive, but love and assistance from beyond the shelter force her to decide whether survival requires permanent distrust or the courage to enter a wider world.