It is a great pleasure to be able to review to celebrate Will Dean's latest standalone novel, The Last Thing to Burn, Published by Hodder and Stoughton on January 7th, it is filled with tension from the opening scene. He is her husband. She is his captive.
Her husband calls her Jane. That is not her name.
She
lives in a small farm cottage, surrounded by vast, open fields.
Everywhere she looks, there is space. But she is trapped. No one knows
how she got to the UK: no one knows she is there. Visitors rarely come
to the farm; if they do, she is never seen.
Her husband records her every movement during the day. If he doesn't like what he sees, she is punished.
For
a long time, escape seemed impossible. But now, something has changed.
She has a reason to live and a reason to fight. Now, she is watching
him, and waiting . . .
My Thoughts
The tension is there from the beginning and never leaves you throughout the book. It felt like one of those books which you wanted to read looking through your fingertips. The suspense was so all encompassing. The vulnerability of the dispossessed and the powerless permeates this story. You feel that you are looking on as innocence is trampled on.
The setting is dark and harrowing. You understand how shrunk Thanh Dao's world has become. You are trapped there on the farm alongside her as one by one, her possessions are burnt and her identity is destroyed. This is a standalone story and certainly a singular tale. It is filled with the horror of Thanh Dao's situation which never leaves you.
In short: A harrowing tale of powerlessness
About the Author
WILL DEAN grew up in the East Midlands, living in nine
different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying law at LSE, and
doing various jobs in London, he settled in rural Sweden with his wife in 2012. He
built a wooden house in a boggy forest clearing and it’s from this base
that he writes, with the aim of being as self-sufficient and low-cost as possible. He
and his wife grow food, forage in summer and autumn, take water from their own
well and use their own timber for heating and cooking. His interests
other than writing are painting, nature, cooking, travel, repairing old mechanical
watches, seakayaking and movies. DARK PINES is his first novel.
Thanks to Will Dean and Hodder and Stoughton for a copy of the book.
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