Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

This is historical fiction, based on a true story from Iceland, which took place in 1828, when Agnes Magnusdottir became the last woman to be executed in Iceland. She and another man apparently murdered her lover, Natan, because he had spurned her affections for a young woman whose lover was the second murderer. Anyway, Agnes is placed on a farm to await her execution and is assigned a young priest to become her confessor . So the story is about what actually happened leading up to the murder, plus her relationships among the people who live on the farm, and the young priest who visits her every day.

There was a lot of local color in this novel- at first I found the names and locations difficult, but I decided to ignore that and just enjoy the story. There is no moral tale here, and the author appears entirely unprejudiced one way or another. She explains in the Afterword that she preferred to make a more " ambiguous portrayal" of this unfortunate young woman.