Wow! What an intense, gripping, page turning book. A story about “Jane” who is being held in slavery by a sick and twisted individual, and her experience of a horrible life, told from her point of view. At first I thought I couldn’t keep reading this disturbing story, but I found I had to keep reading and needed to find out what was going to happen. The characters and the house are so well described and I felt like I was there, that I could smell the mould and feel the pain and taste the food she had to make for her “husband”. I read the last chapters nearly holding my breath - it was so scary but exciting. The story really was about indomitable spirit.

Highly recommended but not if you are easily scared as there are disturbing scenes.

Dark story about domination mental health and thriller. Intriguing and surprising enjoyable even so. Not really my read however would recommend to other thriller lovers

I have read Will Dean’s previous novels which have been excellent crime novels. This time Will Dean ratchets the tension up to give us a powerful novel that deals with the struggles of a Vietnamese refugee. This claustrophobic and very atmospheric novel introduces us to Thanh Dao who is trafficked to England from Vietnam but the better life that she’d been promised doesn’t materialise. She ends up being bought by Lenn a farmer who keeps her trapped in a farmhouse on the fens. Lenn keeps her in a drugged state and has CCTV to watch her every move and treats her as his slave. At the start Thanh tries to escape so Lenn smashes her ankle with bolt cutters. Thanh has very few possessions but she has one novel, John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men which she constantly reads to help her cope.
When considering the blight of Thanh Dao I think of the words of Phil Ochs ‘And there but for fortune, may go you or I’.

The poignant novel is harrowing and unsettling but it is also riveting and brilliantly written. An important, heartfelt novel that I highly recommend.

I have admired the writing of Will Dean for some time with his debut 'Dark Pines' set in Sweden and introducing us to the world of deaf Tuva Moodyson who investigates murders in her role as a journalist. There it is the snow and cold that traps victims but here in this stand alone thriller we have the bleak expanse of the Fens.
The novel begins with an escape by our narrator 'Jane' as she is called by her husband/kidnapper/owner Lenn but soon returns to the controlled captivity of the miserable farm in which he gathers his female victim as a replacement for his own mother yet with the addition of his polluted mind.
I felt for some of the plot we were back in the territory of 'Room' which it still has to be said holds the top award for such a book. But Dean pulls us into a compliant victim here already physically damaged who fears there will never be an escape and needs to hold onto the life also of her sister.
There were small twists and basic human nature of their existence that didn't seem to ring true but as Lenn himself unravels we see the balance of power shift and plot ups a gear into a tense and death defying finale.
It is often hard when you have established a series of highly successful crime thrillers with one main character that really flies off the page to grab your interest, so this was a risk. But like the outcome of this tense book the overall novel has risen to the challenge. As it also pulls into the almost unbearable images of trafficked young women who as we speak are suffering these degradations then it should be a recommended read for us all.

Absolutely riveting despite its grim set of events .. I could not put down this story of an enslaved woman tricked into travelling long distance .. it's the birth of her child that sets things on trail to denouement .. the first person recounting really works. Very fine piece of work setting out depredations of human trafficking.

The “The Last Thing to Burn” by Will Dean is an intense and gut-wrenching story; “Jane” has been cruelly trafficked to the UK and is now being held captive by Lenny in his remote farm where Lenny rules with an iron fist. Jane is unable to escape and must endure at least until a stranger comes calling. Will Dean effortlessly manages to convey the frustration felt by Jane and the brutality by Lenny is truly frightening. Once read, it is impossible to get this haunting story out of your mind.

This was not what I expected! Disturbing story told from the POV of an enslaved Vietnamese girl who is kept captive by a pig farmer in the country. The inevitable pregnancy follows and he forces her to give birth with no medical help. He plays mind games with her to ensure her compliance using the threat of burning the few personal items she has left- her identity card, her sister's letters and her only book-hence the title. Cruel, manipulative and at times a difficult read but compelling and very well told. We are rooting for her to escape this hell but at the same time are frightened that if she deviates from his rules she will suffer more.
Very different from Will Dean's 'Tuva' series but well worth reading

Oh my goodness, this was a hard book to read. Not because of poor writing, quite the opposite. It is extremely well written but the subject matter was soul-destroying. The book is set on a bleak Lincolnshire farm, acres and acres of land and the nearest road a mile away. The farmer, Lenn, has a Vietnamese woman as his ‘wife’, and she must cook and clean for him, but exactly how his mum would have done everything. She wears his mum’s clothes. He calls her Jane, but her name is actually Than Do and she was trafficked to the farm after arriving in Britain illegally, along with her sister. Than Doh has a collection of her sister Kim-Ly’s letters, and a few other items of personal possessions. If Than Doh displeases Lenn, he takes one of her possessions and puts it in the Rayburn where it will turn to ash.

The farmer’s voice is really authentic. I don’t mean what he does, that is clearly out of the ordinary, but the way he speaks and the language he uses. I know a lot of farmers (including my father in law) and actually the minimal conversation, short sentences and the phrases like, ‘we do alright don’t we’ and ‘we live well’ are exactly how they speak!

She is desperate but also strong and this shows in her inner voice and what she is thinking. Although he goes to pains to avoid it, Than Doh does fall pregnant and the baby becomes a source of strength for Than Doh who needs to keep her child alive and well.

It is bleak and remorseless.

Lenn then keeps another woman trapped in the cellar and it becomes even more horrific. There is not much physical violence described but it is awful domestic slavery and psychological violence.
Than Doh has a damaged ankle (due to an act of violence perpetrated by Lenn some years before) and she can barely walk. This resonated with me because I was reading this book whilst laid up with a broken ankle which I can’t stand on or put weight on. I imagined the pain Than Doh was in every time she had to walk or stand.

An excellent, though emotionally taxing, read.

Wow! What a book. I thought the premise sounded like it might be interesting and I'd give it a go, little did I know I'd be completely sucked in and unable to put it down until I found out how it ended.
It was an absolutely brutal tale and difficult to read at points, but very eye-opening and necessary and oh how I was rooting for Thanh.
Some parts I predicted but still found I was utterly shocked when it came to pass.
I really liked the references to "Of Mice and Men"
This is my first book by the author but it certainly won't be the last, I feel like this story will stay with me for a long time.
I thought it was very apt that it has been described as "Room" meets "Misery"
Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for my eARC in return for my honest review.

This is my first Will Dean book and it definitely won't be the last. What a book! It was terrifying, horrific and absolutely shocking. But the awful thing is that these things are happening and society needs to open its eyes to people trafficking and the abuse that follows.
A lot of the book, although it is quite a short read, concentrates on quite mundane household events, which makes what is going on under the surface even worse. The bits where we find out what happened to the main character's foot for example were jaw dropping in their cruelty. The way the main character spoke reminded me of Michael Sams that kidnapped Stephanie Slater and murdered Julie Dart back in the early 1990s, If anyone has read Stephanie's book about her kidnapping, the way Sams spoke, the morose Yorkshireman who talked about Coronation Street and but was actually a psychopath, you will recognise what I mean.
Utterly chilling.

I felt very uncomfortable reading this book, although others could probably deal better with it than me- I'm sorry, but I couldn’t finish it. A Vietnam girl, having thought she was going to have a better life in the UK is transported over and tricked into becoming a slave. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t finish it. On a more positive note Will writes a very graphic and atmospheric novel.

Human trafficking is not normally associated with a young girl living in a farm house with a farmer where she appears to have run of the farmhouse as a housekeeper or servant. It does not take long to discover she is the chief protagonist in a story of blackmail, abuse and intimidation. Events travelling between past and present tell the story of how innocent asylum seekers in search of a better life end up in the clutches of evil . A situation where immoral people use the situation to manipulate and terrorise a young girl for several years until all hope of escape and freedom slowly disappear. Yet when there is nothing left to lose, human nature discovers the resilience and courage to fight back and seek redemption and salvation from unlikely sources. Regular articles in newspapers related to slave trade in the UK do not and cannot relate, as does this book, the intensity of horror as we are reliving each day in purgatory through the eyes of our unlikely heroine. A satisfying conclusion although one that probably only the very few will find in this supposedly land of freedom and opportunity. Many thanks to publisher and NetGalley for this thought provoking ARC.

This is a hit you in the gut sort of story that breaks you up into a million pieces. Thanh Dao and her younger sister Kym-Ly had travelled from Vietnam nine years ago in a cargo ship illegally, to make a better life for themselves. They found out that what they got was to be sold as slaves for their owners to do whatever they wanted with them.

The story takes place around Thanh, now renamed Jane, who lives with her ‘husband’ on a very remote farm miles away from the nearest town. No-one knows of her existence. It begins with Jane being brought back to the farm after trying to escape again and the consequences that she has to face for her actions.


It is a brutal account of Thanh’s life day in day out, and it isn’t an easy read. With each page, I was piecing together a picture of Lenn, the farmer, and it scared the living daylights out of me. Thanh knows the routines that she must follow, even when Lenn isn’t there because he has cameras everywhere in the house. There were horrendous obvious punishments that had been dealt out in the past, and continue, with both physical and mental cruelty, but things are about to change.


The characters in the book couldn’t have been made more perfect, with the descriptions of Lenn gradually building in each chapter. He was always faceless in the story with me, like I couldn’t look him directly in the eyes. The farmhouse, which was stuck in a time warp, left me feeling uneasy that this had never been a normal home way before Thanh lived there.


To say that there are very few characters in the story it never loses that intensity that something worse is going to happen. It makes me shudder to think that this could be someone’s life now.

I wish to thank the publisher and NetGalley for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.

Having enjoyed all three of Will Dean's novels set in Sweden and featuring Tuva Moodyson, I was interested to see what this standalone would offer, and it is excellent! Taut, tense and terrific, it tells the story of a woman who lives as a prisoner on a remote farm, forced to cater to her husband's needs and watched on camera at all times. Escape seems impossible but she is determined not to live like this for ever. I loved it!

Wow. The Last Thing to Burn is an incredible book. The tense tale of ‘Jane’, imprisoned by a man who holds himself out as her husband. It is a brutal story but Will Dean’s skill is in keeping the reader absolutely enthralled and appalled in equal measure. I read it in a day and really couldn’t put it down.

Having read and enjoyed Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson books, The Last Thing to Burn takes the tension up several notches and also masterfully tackles a very difficult topic. I would highly recommend this book. It’s a rare 5* from me.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC in consideration of an honest review.

This is a dark harrowing story which kept me reading. I wanted ‘Jane’ to escape. I wanted her and her baby to live. In many ways this is an eye opening read that I will not forget.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

"It's not a bad life this, is it Jane?" is a line that will stay with me for a long time.

Told from the perspective of women held against her will in a remote farm cottage, The Last Thing to Burn is incredibly well written. I stormed through this book and enjoyed every dark, twisted second. The character of Lenn is so despicable, but Will Dean has created him in a way that makes him believable. You can almost see the logic in everything he does, which makes it all the creepier.

A lot of the pain, misery and turmoil was repetitive, but I think this just added to the claustrophobic feel of the book with no let-up.

In places, my knuckles were white willing Thanh-Dao to make it to freedom. I'd say this book is the epitome of a page-turner.

Last Thing To Burn is engaging and harrowing in equal measure, and well written throughout. It's both easy to read (in that the writing is sparse and to the point in a really good way) and hard to read (in that the description is so good that you're there with the characters while they go through what they go through). There moments while reading when I gasped and when I winced: all marks of an excellent book! Well done Will Dean

Book of the year! Easy!

Outstanding writing by Will Dean. It is visceral and oh, so real. It is heartbreaking that what is transcribed in these pages is what actually happens to so many people in this world. Who we are yet to even know.

Will Dean's writing has improved to such a degree that he will be the name on everyone's lips after this hits the public realm. It is honestly an absolute pleasure to have been provided this title.

Coming back to the writing...

A reader needs to be transported. And in "The Last Thing to Burn", we are sat next to "Jane" as she has to endure the torment of her captor. We see her world that has been, is, and is to come. All the while trying to find a way out for her, and us both. This is what captivating writing does, it places you in the scene. It is heartbreaking to have to endure the atrocities this poor woman is faced with on a daily basis.

Whoever sees this, buy it. Buy three and give them away. It is worth every single cent that could be spent. I know I will certainly be purchasing this when it is released.

Jane lives on an isolated fenland farm with her husband. She never leaves, never sees anyone and is watched constantly by her husband. But Jane isn't her name and the man she lives with isn't really her husband.

Holy heck this story. I went into this book not really knowing anything. I read the tagline only so I found it a pretty shocking read. Jane's life is utterly depressing and so incredibly sad. Leonard, her 'husband' is a vile human being but written so well.

It's a well paced book with a compelling narrative. It's very character driven. Jane had me rushing toward the end of the book, fingers crossed and tears in my eyes. At times it is brutal. The setting was written expertly, descriptions of the house and the cold had me shivering on my comfy sofa. Jane endures so much and although her inner strength wavers at times, she truly is a survivor.

A gripping story that deals with some serious issues. It's quite intense and you need to have thick skin to make it all the way to the end. Bleak is definitely a good way to describe it but there is hope and it's a quick read. Powerful and thought provoking. Would recommend.

Many thanks to the publisher for the gifted eARC in exchange for an honest review.