The Sin Eater walks among us, unseen, unheard Sins of our flesh become sins of Hers Following Her to the grave, Unseen, unheard The Sin Eater Walks Among Us. For the crime of stealing bread in 16th century England, fourteen-year-old May receives a life sentence: she must become a Sin Eater, a shunned woman, brutally marked, who cannot be touched, who cannot be spoken to, and who cannot speak. Her fate is to hear the final confessions of the dying, eat the foods symbolizing their sins as a funeral rite, and thereby shoulder their transgressions to grant their souls access to heaven. Orphaned and now friendless, apprenticed to an older Sin Eater who cannot speak to her, May must make her way in a dangerous and cruel world she little understands. Summoned to the queen's palace, she makes up her own names for the courtiers she meets: Willow Tree, Black Fingers, Fair Hair. When a deer heart appears on the coffin of a royal governess who did not confess to the dreadful sin it stands for, the older Sin Eater refuses to eat it. She is taken to prison, tortured, and killed. To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why.

Sin Eater is an extraordinary, lyrical feat of imagination. Chaucerian in its cast of characters, like the work of Madeline Miller and Margaret Atwood in its inventive exploration of history and womanhood, this is the story of a world where treason and secrets abound within a corrupt, violent Court--and a shunned young woman must uncover the long-buried secret which has resurfaced with a vengeance.