A stubborn coastal town, a ledger of old debts, and a woman determined to make repair—The Hunger Saint is a quiet, propulsive novel about care and the cost of keeping it. When the harbour coughs up trouble, neighbours talk in the way they always have—roundabout, fiercely observant, mostly kind. But kindness has a price. In kitchens that smell of toast and salt, choices are counted out like coins: who owes what, who sets a boundary, who learns to say no without apology. The book walks steadily through workdays, vigils, and small mercies to follow a community learning to name harm and attempt repair. With lyrical precision and Irish/UK texture, Laura Carpenter writes a story of ordinary bravery—how love shows up in chores, how a town remembers, and how a life is re-made not by speeches but by decent tasks done in the right order. For readers of Claire Keegan and Donal Ryan, this is an intimate novel of moral weather: restless, salt-bright, and finally generous.