The Last Thing to Burn: Longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year

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Jane is the narrator, and man, can she tell a story. Okay, I’m going to call her Jane in this review, though I feel awful about it—so sorry, Thanh Dao! It’s just that that’s the name I know her by. I hate to “listen to” Lenn and call her Jane; I feel like I’m betraying Thanh Dao by using the name her tormentor gave her! Now the fact that I’m freaking out by calling her Jane in a review shows you how much this book got under my skin. OMG, I think these people are real! Talk about visceral! This brutal book tied my belly in a knot and made me chew my lips, hard. It also made me feel incredibly claustrophobic. If Misery and Room had a baby, it would look like this book. I loved this baby even though it’s one of the most horrific stories I’ve ever read. A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel. My 1 star rating is not because the book wasn’t well written.... but because it was too dark, HORRIFIC... for me personally.

The Last Thing to Burn: Longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger

This is the story of ‘Jane’, the name given to her by her ‘husband’ Leonard who keeps her captive on his isolated Fenland farm. He has cameras watching her all day long and if she does something he doesn’t like she is punished. Thanh Dao aka Jane tells her story. Will Dean offers us something different here with this "domestic thriller," and it was claustrophobic, but it didn't deliver on that slow-building tension, sense of dread, or fear. As disturbing as Jane's environment was, I never really got that sense of fear I wanted to feel from Jane. Maybe it had something to do with the author being male writing the POV of a woman fearing a man that distracting me from that. It was all about the strong theme of men controlling women, and I could feel that coming from Lenn. There is something a little different here with the way Lenn controls Jane, which was the driving force of the story for me. A woman receives an unexpected visitor during a deadly snowstorm in this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf

This is an awesome read. I love the writing that lulled me in deeper. It’s a poignant story, outlining the best and worst in the world. And here my friends is where I leave you. I thought I'd read the first couple chapters and then sleep, as I haven't been feeling the greatest and was pretty tired. Further, the first chapter's flowery prose sort of turned me off...soooo not what I was in the mood for.

The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean | Waterstones The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean | Waterstones

Jane is a strong character, and I love the strength she finds to hold on to who she is while trying to survive, however her conflicts and actions felt a bit predictable. It was Lenn who stoled the show for me with his unsettling calm way of thinking the forced daily repetitive routine Jane must do just the way his mother did is a perfectly normal life with Jane that intrigued me from start to finish. A couple of turns to the story left me pleasantly surprised, and I didn't expect or see the twist coming in the end. The ending blurs the lines of fiction and reality a bit too far, but I did like the way it all wrapped up. Doug and I went to bed last night around 12:30, our normal bedtime when he has to work the following morning (late, I know, but we're night owls at heart). Often times, it is said that an author needs to show and not tell. For example, instead of saying X was horrible, the author should describe the experience and allow the reader to conclude that the situation is horrible. This is a textbook example of an author showing the reader how awful the situation is. This book is raw, dark, and gritty. It is not a mystery but a thriller. The reader is constantly kept in suspense and wondering what the outcomes will be. The author has beautifully captured the emotions and terror of Jane as if we were sitting along beside her. Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own. A woman being held captive is willing to risk everything to save herself, her unborn child, and her captor’s latest victim in this “intense, dark, and utterly chilling” (Jennifer Hillier, author of ​ Jar of Hearts) thriller in the tradition of Misery and Room.Not since Lionel Shriver brought us We Need to Talk About Kevin has a writer delved into the complexities of a disturbed mother/son relationship. Until now. I read the whole damn book. After I got started, I literally could not put it down. This is, by far, one of the most compelling novels I've ever read. It's such a difficult and dark tale, but unlike The Four Winds which I opted to give a low rating for its never-ending bleakness, in The Last Thing to Burn, I could feel the hope in every single word the main character uttered; in every thought she had; in all her actions. This book felt nothing like The Four Winds.