The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean 4,5****

RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 256

Wow, that was a pretty intense and claustrophobic read!

I didn’t read much of the blurb before going into this one and was caught completely off guard.

The story begins with "Jane", or at least that's how we know her, trying to escape from a farm after being locked up as a sex slave for several years.

Jane was brought over to the UK from Vietnam nine years ago with her younger sister. Both were promised honest work with good wages that would comfortably support their family in Vietnam. Instead, she is snatched from her sister and sold to Lenn on a remote farm in the rural East Midlands where she is held captive.

Some parts of this book were really hard to read. 🥲The torture, psychological pain and utter despair Jane goes through were palpable. The humiliation she endures day after day while he slowly strips her of her identity was heartbreaking to read!

I found myself reading faster, hoping something crucial would happen soon to free her from this hellhole. Fortunately, the ending helped me digest much of the heartbreak I went through.

It could have been a five-star read had ‘Jane’s’ voice been a little more authentic. For an innocent, young Vietnamese girl, her thoughts and actions seemed very western to me.

Kudos to Will Dean for tackling such a hard subject so sensitively. He certainly opened my eyes to the horrors of human trafficking!