Blurb:

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 . . .

Review:

I have heard so many amazing things about The Last Thing To Burn and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on my own copy. Unlike Dean’s other work, this is a standalone novel and I was interested to see how I would relate to some new characters. I immediately sympathised with “Jane” and understood the gravity of her situation. I admired her tenacity and I was desperate to see her escape. Her “husband”, on the other hand, is one of those characters who makes you skin crawl: Dean has definitely created a very credible monster.

The Last Thing To Burn explores a particular issue (that I won’t give away in this review) that is not often examined in literature. It’s a subject that I don’t know much about and I appreciated the opportunity to learn more from the characters’ stories. It is an important issue that should be discussed more openly, and I felt Dean handled it sensitively and in a very engaging way.

The tension runs the whole way through this novel and I immediately felt claustrophobic as “Jane” described her surroundings. However, this increases tenfold in the last quarter of the book and I was on tenterhooks, hoping that everything would work out for “Jane.”

The Last Thing To Burn is available from Amazon.