Wow ... that was one heck of a powerful read and one where the characters will stay with me for some time.

Jane - named so by her "husband" Lennie - was trafficked from her native Vietnam with her younger sister, she is kept captive on an isolated farm in what can only be described as squalid and run down conditions. She is watched every minute of every day, she is not allowed to speak to anyone, she is not allowed to go anywhere - her day is regimented from start to finish and for each perceived transgression, the treasured possessions she has are slowly burned in front of her eyes.

This is a harrowing story of a desperate life of servitude and abuse; the scary thing is that it is happening to thousands of men, women and children the world over which makes it even more upsetting. However, it is also a story of hope and the desperate will and strength to survive and fight back when things appear to be hopeless.

The whole book is written from "Jane's" perspective and she is an enthralling narrator. The setting is just perfect and described scarily accurately - my job takes me into isolated farmhouses that are pretty bleak and dilapidated and this made the story even more real for me.

This is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination but despite that, I found it very hard to put down. I was drawn into the story hook, line and sinker; it grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go until the very last page ... it lingers still in the back of my mind and there are very few books that do this.

Highly recommended.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for my advance copy in return for an unbiased and unedited review.

Wow

What can I say?

I could not put this book down, an uncomfortable read in parts but a gripping edge of the seat read.
A simple book, disturbing in parts, brilliantly written.

I don’t want to give anything away but trust me, you just need to read it.

Oof! What can be said about Will Dean’s The Last Thing to Burn? It throws up a lot of uncomfortable and difficult subjects that are painful to read but it’s also so completely engaging that I finished it all in one sitting.

Thanh Dao is a woman trafficked to England in hope of a better life and instead is sold as a wife to a man on an isolated farm who destroys her possessions one by one if she defies him. The menacing undertones of the book makes for a sinister read and we are fully committed into Thanh’s journey. The book is so well paced that we are constantly finding out new information, whether it be the reason why Thanh’s ankle is so damaged or Lenn’s obsession with his mother, there is a lot of depth in the plot which is drip fed to us to keep us on our toes.

Although written by a male author, the female topics of periods, sex, giving birth and motherhood are really carefully drawn and evoke feeling throughout. All of the characters feel so well defined, even the awful Lenn. I liked Thanh’s defiant thoughts that stay with her even when she is unable to vocalise them, the most common being ‘Jane is not my name’. It’s one of those books that certainly needs a trigger warning and I understand will not be for everyone but if you can stomach it, it’s an important and heart-breaking story.

Overall, The Last Thing to Burn is a powerful and disturbing story that stays with you long after you put it down. Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of The Last Thing to Burn, a stand-alone set somewhere in England.

Jane is not her real name but that’s what he calls her. They live in a secluded farmhouse surrounded by open fields where he watches her 24/7. For reasons of her own escape has never been an option but now that things have changed she’s biding her time.

The Last Thing to Burn is not an enjoyable novel, because it is raw, searing and almost unbearable in its inhumanity and cruelty. I first picked it up a few months ago but found it too intense for my mood at the time, where I wanted fun and intrigue rather than stark reality. I have now come back to it and am able to appreciate both its message and the simple banality of cruelty. The novel is told from “Jane’s” first person perspective and this gives it an immediacy and impact that really drives her situation home to the reader. It is not a long novel so every word counts. I’m glad that I finished the novel as it ends on a note of hope, although I do feel that it is perhaps the only false note in an otherwise bleak but believable tale. What a sad thing to say.

The Last Thing to Burn is a novel that should win awards for its simple context that hides powerful emotions and difficult situations. I appreciate that for many readers it will be an outstanding read, perhaps their book of the year. Personally I found it difficult to bear and struggled to cope with the cruelty. I read fiction for escapism and entertainment and this asked me to confront things I’d rather ignore. For this I have awarded it four rather than the five stars it probably deserves.

This is a fantastic book which had me reading into the night, heart pounding, to finish it.

It’s dark and disturbing and tackles a subject which is much too easily ignored, for that I applaud the author, It may be too distressing a read for some.

It didn’t grip me from the first page, instead I think I was very subtly pulled in to its pages over time by some very adept, creative writing. I was hooked before I realised, a most satisfactory experience. The chapters are a good length, not too long, so you can put it down (if you need/want to), the atmosphere is well written to be threatening and sinister and the characters are well formed. I personally didn’t like that the narrators voice spoke on the page in perfect English, when she is supposed to be Vietnamese with English learned from tv subtitles etc, it just made the experience a little less authentic for me, but it may not matter to others. The book itself is well paced, the beginning lays the foundations well for what becomes a fast paced, pulse racing read at the end.


On the whole, one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year, and no doubt will be one of the best out there in 2021. I will certainly be recommending this book. I am sure someone, somewhere, is chomping at the bit to get this made in to a film.

Thanks to Will Dean, the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this tense, heart stopping book.

I had no idea what to expect from this book but was very quickly hooked by the tail of a young Vietnamese girl, sold into slavery to a fenland farmer. With the recent successful prosecution of the people smugglers who brought a truck full of Vietnamese people into the UK, only to suffocate the lots of them, the abuse of hopeful young people who come to our country in search of a better life for themselves and their communities back home is very apposite. Throughout this year's lockdown and restrictions, I've been wondering about what has been happening to the young Vietnamese women working in (now closed) nail-bars and the sex-trade. After reading 'The Last Thing to Burn', I'm even more scared to let my imagination loose on their situation.

The story is sadly very believable. Lenn, the farmer, controls 'Jane', his 'wife' (she's neither Jane, nor his wife) by crippling her, by threatening harm to her younger sister, videoing her all day long, and setting very strict rules for her behaviour. Every time she breaks one of his rules, another of her few precious things gets burnt; hence the title. As she runs out of things to burn, and finds something bigger than herself to focus on for her will to survive, can Jane find a way out of her situation?

I really enjoyed this book and was relieved that the author resisted the temptation to make it even more horrible for her than he did. The one thing that didn't quite fit for me was that Jane's English was way more fluent and sophisticated than her experience might have suggested. Lenn was the one with the semi-illiterate language skills. I can, however, turn a blind eye to the linguistic incongruity.

I hope this book will encourage more people to ask questions about what's really going on with human slavery and people smuggling.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this ahead of publication.

This is a disturbing story, but is a situation that some people in the world have experienced.
A woman is being held against her will by a farmer after being promised a job and a home in the UK.
Her sister was with her but Lenn tells her she is now gone.
He calls her Jane, but this is not her real name.
She is allowed to cook and clean and has to share his bed as long as it’s not the time of the month.
Unexpectedly Jane falls pregnant and this gives her the strength to stand up for her baby’s needs when she needs her.
Jane has a badly damaged ankle after Lenn viciously hit it and she can barely walk on that foot, so knows her chances of escape are very slim.
A gripping, sometimes uncomfortable read about abuse, people trafficking and the horrendous situations they endure.
Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

We meet our protagonist Jane as she goes about her daily routine, cleaning her home and preparing dinner for her husband, before quickly learning that her name is not really Jane, and Lenn is not really her husband. So begins a quietly powerful story of trafficking and modern slavery, full of fear, pain and resignation. Fearing for both the wellbeing of her sister, who arrived with Thanh Dao (aka ‘Jane’) from Vietnam, and further reprisals of the nature that she has already endured before we meet her, Thanh Dao has become resigned to her fate and goes along with the charade of being Lenn’s wife. However, that all changes when Thanh Dao discovers that she is pregnant.

Not wanting the same fate for her daughter, this is the story of what lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her child. It is also a tale of friendship, as Thanh Dao finds strength in an ally that I didn’t expect. The author is very skilled in his description of the setting, which is as stark and bleak as Thanh Dao’s future seems. The relationships are also very well drawn – the description of the bond between mother and baby is palpable and Lenn, without really saying much, is a hugely menacing presence.

While the story is a difficult one to “enjoy”, it is well-written and gripping. The sense of claustrophobia and constant observation is similar to that of “Room”, and the ending is well done. I would certainly read more by this author, and this one will stay with me for quite some time to come.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Dark, disturbing, completely absorbing. I could not put The Last Thing to Burn down and stayed awake reading late into the night on more than one occasion. I could not let the story go, or rather, the story wouldn't let me go! It seems deceptively simple but is compelling as hell.

An illegal Vietnamese woman is held captive by Lenn, a farmer on the Fenlands of England. He calls her Jane, that is not her name, he gives her the freedom to do housework, cook and go outdoors, but she doesn't escape though she longs to. What keeps her and how can this story create such an iron hold on readers?!? I'm not going to spoil this ingenious story by delving any further into the plot points. But, will simply say this book may very well be top of my pandemic reading list for 2020. I have not been so deeply involved in a story, and completely distracted from the global troubles, as when I was reading this novel. Will Dean, bless you and I beg you to start writing another novel straight away.

My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Last Thing to Burn’ by Will Dean in exchange for an honest review.

There has been a great deal of buzz around Will Dean’s standalone thriller due to be published on 7 January 2021. This was my first experience of Dean’s writing, though I have been meaning for some time to read his work as I have heard good things about the Tuva Moodyson series.

I won’t say too much about the plot as I feel thrillers are best read ‘cold’ for maximum impact. Its narrator is Thanh Dao, a young Vietnamese woman, who came to Britain with her sister Kim Ly with the promise of work. However, in actuality they were trafficked. Thanh Dao was sold to Lenn, a Fenland farmer.

She is basically his slave and he controls every aspect of her life, including recording her while he is working in the fields in order to review her activities. He refers to her as ‘Jane’ and uses the threat of exposing her sister, who is working elsewhere, to keep her compliant. Then one day, something changes....

There is no doubt that this novel is dark and uncompromising. I felt that Dean skilfully captured the bleak atmosphere of the Fens as well as Thanh Dao’s voice, which was raw and compelling.

This novel proved impossible to put down. So much so that I continued reading in bed and into the wee hours of the morning in order to finish as I had to know what happens. This is very rare for me.

While this is not a comfortable read, it does celebrate the resilience of the human spirit alongside highlighting a great evil that is continuing throughout the world. Following the story, Dean provides details of organisations seeking to assist the victims of human trafficking.

Overall, I felt that its subject matter, combined with Dean’s evocative writing, elevates this novel beyond the thriller genre. This is not to disparage genre fiction, which I respect, but often thrillers are about the thrills and avoids social issues.

Highly recommended and well deserving of its pre-publication anticipation.

A deeply disturbing tale of the forced labour of an illegal immigrant by a heartless farmer involved with people trafficking. The sheer cruelty of the man is graphically described as the tale builds excruciatingly slowly until the girl has a child and a neighbour seeking help is dragged literally into the action. Their eventual painful escape is interrupted by the discovery of the girl’s sister also held in another part of the farm and the necessity to return to the farmhouse leads to the shock denouement. A difficult read at times but ultimately a worthwhile story of events that unfortunately still go on around us.

EASY FIVE STARS!
Read in a day, and what an anxiety-ridden mind-blowing day that was!
I absolutely loved the protagonist, worrying for her, aching for her, and wincing for her poor injured foot.
Absolutely stunning read, and I will be recommending it till the pigs come home!

Outstanding! If I could give this book a standing ovation then that's what I would be doing right now!

I was utterly utterly captivated throughout this whole story and have never wanted to shout at characters in a book quite so much in my life!

This simple tale essentially contained within three small rooms absolutely consumed my thoughts - I worried about 'Jane' when I wasn't reading. (I'm pretty sure I felt slight anxiety for the days when I had this book on the go, so be warned!)

I don't want to spoil the story for anyone so won't say much more, other than that if you have a book lover in your life, as others have said - fans of Misery and Room - will LOVE this book.

Well, I say LOVE, but also they'll hate it so bear that in mind... Can't recommend it enough, brilliant!

Jane lives in a cottage on the farm land owned by her husband, running the house and farm between them. But Jane is not who she seems. Who is she, where did she come from and how did she end up on the farm. Trapped, with everything she does caught on camera and no way out, Jane finally finds a reason to fight back after years of being physically and mentally abused.

A gripping, sometimes uncomfortable read about abuse, people trafficking and the horrendous situations they endure. After suffering a broken leg and ankle I cringed every time Jane described what she was going through as it was so real.

I really enjoyed this but I only gave 4 stars as the build up and suspense were tireless and enthralling but then I felt the ending was a bit rushed. All of a sudden it was over. This is, of course, my personnel opinion and you shouldn't let it put you off fantastic read.

After enjoying Will Dean’s Tuva series I was excited to get a copy of this standalone thriller. I loved Marian Keyes analogy of ‘Misery meets Room’ and think that sums the book up rather well. A super atmospheric book that tells a powerful story of human trafficking and exploitation. There are some truly horrifying and edge of the seat moments in this woman’s fight for survival.

An atmospheric page-turner, for sure. A Vietnamese woman, Thanh Dao, was amongst a group that had been human trafficked into England and she has been held captive and abused by the violent Lenn for the last 8 years or so. Stuck in an isolated farmhouse in the desolate Fens she is unable to escape. The mental and physical abuse is powerfully depicted, as is the cold and the damp and the sheer despair of her situation.

So, as it goes, this is the kind of book that draws you in and keeps you going until the end. Written in the first-person, and in the present tense, the author manages to convey the sense of immediacy and tension.

But - and here's the thing - I must have been reading a different book from pretty much everyone else who has given this 5 stars, and raving about it being the greatest book ever. It's not, for me at least. It's not original, and the will-she-won't-she-escape plot is.... well, let's say the ending is not a surprise. Furthermore, giving voice to a Vietnamese woman who learns to speak English by reading subtitles on Lenn's TV is fine, but the narrative voice speaks perfect English (frankly, better than I do!) and that is a major flaw for me. It just doesn't feel right, and creates a barrier of unreality that I could never get over.

It's well-written and atmospheric, as other have said, and it's worth a read for a quick dose of thrills and scares. But it was a bit too obvious and the ending a little too unbelievably OTT for me. I'm sure somewhere the film rights have been snapped up already.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

An easy but hard book to read
Easy as the writing is so good and the story once grabbed you in the first chapter wont let you go until the last sentence
Hard because of the subject and what happens/ is happening
‘Jane’ arrived from Vietnam some years ago with her Sister via the back of a lorry and after an initial year or so on a farm with many others Jane is ‘married’ and her Sister is set to work elsewhere to ‘pay off her passage’
To all intent and purposes Jane is a prisoner with ‘husband’ Len her captor on a god forsaken farm in the Fens, her every moment and movement is controlled and he exerts his evil command of her in every abusive way possible, Len is evil, repugnant and base and you will hate him from the first minute, ‘Jane’ has a constant battle against escape, although tries, as she is threatened that her Sister will never be free if she does ( amongst other nasty threats)
And then the worst thing happens, Jane falls pregnant, she is bereft, with the added horror of another person arriving to ‘live’ at the house she thinks things cannot get any worse or more horrifying, they do and then..well then things start to shift
Appalling, terrifying and unnerving yet brilliantly written you will be unable to leave this as a casual read and NEED to finish it to see what happens
And just to confirm, you will hate Len with a passion
Superb

10/10
5 Stars

I am a big fan of Will Dean and his Tuva Moodyson series, so I was delighted to receive an ARC of The Last Thing to Burn.
This novel is a brutal and harrowing account of people trafficking and the people who fall victim to the lies of well presented and plausible criminals.
It's the story of "Jane" and her "husband" Lenn living in a ramshackle farmhouse in The Fens. "Jane" is not her real name, her real name is Thanh Dao and Lenn is not her real "husband" he is her captor and abuser.
Thanh Dao is not allowed to use her real name and is expected to act in all ways like a wife without any of the benefits. She is controlled by Lenn's knowledge of her sister's whereabouts and the threat of deportation. Lenn allows Thanh Dao letters from her sister Kim-Ly and she draws strength from these and they are one of her prized possessions. Thanh Dao has tried to escape and her punishment was a Misery like attack on one of her ankles, leaving her ankle like a pulsating mess of spongy bone and tissue.
Despite Lenn's best efforts Thanh Dao becomes pregnant and it is then that she realises she has no choice but to escape. After what Lenn deems to be deliberate attempts to disobey him he burns one of Thanh Dao's prized possessions e.g a photo of her family or her beloved copy of Mice and Men.
The setting of the book in The Fens is part of the scene setting. The descriptions of The Fens as dark and dismal and unrelenting flat help us understand why escape is so difficult.
This is not an easy novel to read, the unremitting violence inflicted on Thanh Dao, the awfulness of their living conditions, the expectation that everything would be done exactly as Leonard's mother had, cause a sense of hopelessness in the reader which I presume is Will Dean's intention. As the reader I cheered Thanh Dao's small victories and cringed at her failures. The tension the author creates is palpable and at times I had a dry mouth while reading. This book draws you in so quickly I literally could not put it down.
This dark and tense novel is perfectly pitched and will not disappoint. Will Dean is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.
Thanks to #Netgalley and #Hodder&Stoughton for the ARC in return for an honest review

Jane and her husband Leonard live on a farm. While he works in the fields and tends to the pigs, she cooks his meals and cleans the house.
Except Jane's name is not Jane. Her name is Thanh Dao, and Leonard has been holding her captive for years. She can't escape because he broke her ankle, but soon she will have a reason to try again...

Wow! What have I just read?
This was a fast-paced, utterly gripping read that kept me on tenterhooks from the first page to the last.
It might not be an easy read, the story was dark and disturbing, addressing the very important topic of human trafficking, but it was unputdownable.
This was my first book from this author, but it definitely won't be my last, and it receives a place among my favourite books of this year.
I highly recommend it.

This book absolutely deserves 5 stars. A very tense and at times disturbing read, the plot keeps you hooked. The characters are fascinating and the dialogue used is perfect. With very few characters in the book it is still totally enthralling.