Excerpt from The Butchers' Blessing by Ruth Gilligan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

At first Úna had been confused—hadn't her father always told her how important the Butchers were? How integral a role they played in Ireland's history? So if anything, when her parents decided to stop her home schooling and send her to secondary school, she had thought her new classmates would all be dying to be her friend—angling for invites to Sunday tea to taste her family's meat and hear their stories. But when the reality had set in, Úna asked her mam why everyone seemed to hate her, and her mam could only garble some excuse about her being "special." "And 'special' isn't always easy to understand, love, so instead people just push it away."

"Howdy, cowgirl," someone called now from the end of the corridor. "What did Santa bring you?"

"Ugh, she probably still believes in him, too."

"Yeehaw!"

"Or maybe her lot would rather slit poor Rudolph's neck?"

Úna turned from the laughter—she was used to it by now; didn't let it upset her. Instead, she distracted herself by trying to guess what her mam might have put in her lunchbox today. She hoped it was tomato and mustard sandwiches, her favourite kind. Sometimes it was so spicy it hurt, and sometimes that was good.

Excerpted from The Butchers' Blessing by Ruth Gilligan. Copyright © 2020 by Ruth Gilligan. Excerpted by permission of Tin House Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.