Wow!!!

This was intense. Perhaps unexpectedly so.

Far better than I had hoped as well.

I don’t know it’s quite a thriller. It’s perhaps dark, and at times suspenseful. So maybe it fits. Just in a different manner than I’m used to.

4.5/5 -- A great story with spectacular writing. I mean, this really is a well-written story. But it is also incredibly hard to read. Jane and the others went through such horrendous abuses that it was difficult to keep going at times. I pushed through and finished because I was desperate to see how things would end. This must be one of the closest depictions of enslavement after trafficking that I've personally ever read. The bad guy is so terribly vile and bad, and yet somehow Jane is able to maintain hope that she will eventually escape.

I think the toughest parts about the book were also probably the best parts: Jane's struggle with pain after an awful injury to one of her feet and the way Lenn controlled her psychologically. Jane's pain was described so well that it made me grimace and feel sick, so it made it easier for me to understand how much her hurt was. And the way Jane was controlled, always watched, and worn down into the most miniscule version of who she once was was devastating to read, and I can only imagine the author was purposeful about that.

If I could offer any suggestions to the story, I would only say that I wish I was able to get a glimpse of Jane when Lenn first brought her to his home. The author alludes to the past in the story, but it actually begins when Jane had already been in Lenn's home for something like seven long years. I do love the way the author began the story-the first chapter is nail-biting, gripping, really sucks you in.

A really great story but tough, tough, tough. I'll certainly read more from Will Dean. Jane had a lot of strength and grit, and I really liked her.


I received a digital review copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Atria/Emily Bestler Books!

Intense and fast paced, this is a novel of survival reminiscent of The Room with a dash of Misery thrown in. Creepy in the best sort of way, you won't want to put this one down, because you will be quickly vested in this young girl's survival. Highly recommended if you like intense drama. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital ARC for review.

Big sigh!!! Just another abduction, imprisonment, control over women story marketed as a "claustrophobic thriller." Wait, hmm, Lenn has my attention with his claustrophobic, disturbing, controlling way over Jane, but did that created the tension, sense of dread, and fear needed to create a thrilling, chilling and exciting thriller?

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.

Jane is not her real name but the name Lenn has given her. Her real name is Thanh Dao, she came to the UK with her sister and the promise of a good job but instead is sold to Lenn. A claustrophobic feeling is created here with the isolated wooded farm Jane is imprisoned in. Lenn is creepy, disturbing, and unsettling with the way he uses psychological coercion in a haunting way and physical abuse to control Thanh Dao. Lenn uses threats against her sister and the possessions that keep her connected to who she is. When Thanh displeases Lenn or breaks the rules, he burns one of her possessions. She loses a piece of who she is and struggles with being replaced as Jane, his wife, and the image of his mother.

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.

Evocative and enthralling, a fine journey into the world of a captive woman and her desperation to escape. A dark look at human trafficking and its results. Mesmerizing and recommended reading.

This was a chilling read! This book had me invested from the beginning! It was hard to read at times due to the nature of the kidnapping but I was so invested to see if she would escape that I couldn't stop. The plot twist at the end actually made my jaw drop, I was not expecting that. The ending as a whole was very satisfying but I would have loved to know more about the back story of the two main characters, especially Len, to understand why he did the things he did. Great read.

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

Wow! What an excellent, dark story! I could not put this book down! Looking forward to reading more novels by this author!

Wow! Was not expecting to love this as much as I did. I couldn’t put this one down! I loved “Jane” and was hopeful for her happy ending throughout the entire book. Human trafficking is real, and I hate to imagine that this is how some people live their lives and get brought into other countries. Highly recommend if you want a good, quick thriller!

Truly not my genre. Thriller. Monster who kidnaps and rapes his captive on an isolated farm in the UK. She resolves that she will protect her child at any cost. After another captive woman is brought into the farm where she's being held she begins to question everything.

Wow. It's hard to believe the entirety of this story occurred in a farm house in the middle of nowhere. That would seemingly make for a very narrow world and be difficult to keep riveting, but this author managed it. Chilling and tense, I sympathized with this main character so much. It's hard to imagine someone as monstrous as her captor, but I know there out there, and Will Dean captured the enormity of the despair, and the ultimate triumph of the main character in this story. Great read.

The Last Thing to Burn was a fast paced thriller. I really enjoyed following these characters and the author’s writing style is fabulous! I really felt connected to the way this story was told. The ending was my favorite part. I really enjoyed following this story and had a blast.

This story is a well written psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. This book was impossible to stop reading. The book centers on Jane. However, that is not her real name. Jane lives in a house without anything around. The only person that she is ever exposed to is her husband. She is being held captive and recorded 24 hours per day. As we continue to read, we learn that not only must Jane be concerned with her freedom, but now that of her baby. Will she ever escape her horrific conditions? It was impossible to put this book down. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in psychological thrillers. Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

4.5/5

The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean has been getting some seriously amazing reviews, and I can definitely see why. This is a very tense and disturbing novel, and while I went into it blind without reading the synopsis, due to the content this is not something I recommend everyone doing. If there are triggers that you can't read, checking the synopsis out is going to be key for you. Be that as it may, I had no idea what was going on when I first started the audiobook, but it became quickly apparent that this book is about a young woman being held in captivity. The monster holding her calls her Jane, but she is very adamant to the reader that this is not her name, and you soon find out how she ended up in this horrific situation. My heart just broke for her, and I want to make it very clear that this is not a tame read. It will horrify and disgust you, but at the same time is a book that you cannot put down. I listened to the audio in one day and one sitting because I couldn't tear myself away from it. It also helped that Sarah Lam was an incredible narrator and brought Jane's character to life making this all feel incredibly real.

I also have to hand it to Dean for writing Jane the way he did, she is being held captive and has horrible things happening to her, and yet she is still so strong and not a weak character in the slightest. I really like it when authors write characters this way - when they could let their situation completely consume them and run them into the ground but instead, they want to get out and will do anything to make that happen. I know it happens and with good reason, but I especially love reading about the characters that have a strong sense of self and won't let their will to live go. And this is probably crazy, but I was very unsure how to rate The Last Thing to Burn when I finished and even more unsure about how I felt in general. However, the more I thought about it the more I was sure of what to rate it. Dean's writing is very compelling, and he took this really dark subject and did a fantastic job with it. This is my first novel by him, and it has definitely made me want to read his backlist.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A refreshing thriller that kept me interested right to the the last page. I feel like a lot of thrillers have been stale so it was nice to read something that was a bit different and I haven’t ever read anything by this guy before I def will in the future!

I went through this in one day because I just had to know what happened to Jane aka “Thanh”. Born in Vietnam, Thanh and her younger sister are brought to the UK for a so called better life. Their family has been wooed into believing that they will receive the best the world has to offer. That is not the fate that awaits them. Like so many vulnerable people in their position, Thanh and her sister are trafficked. For seven years Thanh has lived on the isolated, rural farm of a man she knows as Lenn. For seven years she is dehumanized and emotionally destroyed piece by piece. This story is simultaneously a nightmare and a triumph of the power of the human spirit. The author does a great job here of walking a fine line between telling an awful tale while pushing us forward through Thanh’s perseverance. Despite the obviously dark subject matter, I loved the story. Review posted to Goodreads, Amazon, Litsy, and LibraryThing

So good! So unexpecting! Loved it! Couldn't put it down and it had a perfect ending! I rate this book a 4.3

Reading 2021
Book 55: The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

Thank you #NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchanged for my review.

This book was compared to Room and Misery. Jane, not her real name, was brought to the US to work, but Lenn has other plans. He has her locked up in his house. When she tries to escape he practically destroys her ankle so she can barely walk. Each time Jane acts up, Lenn burns one of the possessions Janae has left from her old life. Jane is also worried about protecting her sister who is also in the US. Then Jane gets pregnant and has Lenn's baby. Jane so badly wants to escape.

This was a good book. The middle dragged along, the same thing day after day. The ending had a couple of surprises, but then got a bit over the top. It took me a while to read this book, and I think that did not help my enjoyment of it. There are some great reviews out there of this book, this one was just okay for me. 3.5⭐️.

DNF at 25%. This book didn’t work for me. I found it to be so repetitive. I understand what he was trying to do with creating the atmosphere, but it just wasn’t my thing. I know it’s well loved, and I hope it continues to get into the hands of readers that love it.

A dark and depressing tale that absolutely would not let me put it down. An amazing story of survival and love.

Typically I read fast paced novels and found the pacing a bit slow, HOWEVER that pace actually worked perfectly for the story and helped emphasized the emotions and monotony the protagonist was experiencing.

I definitely will read more of the author's work in the future. Fantastic read.

In the by-now hallowed tradition of Emma Donoghue's decade-old Room, "The Last Thing to Burn" is a harrowing, immersive tale of a woman trapped in an imprisoned life on an English farm, trapped by the vastness of the countryside and her psychopathic captor's surveillance system. Enslaved to provide a weird wifely life to the brutal man, Jane (his name for her) has no hope, no prospects … until chinks of possibility open and a new reason for hope emerges. The first standalone novel for Will Dean, a British-born resident of Sweden, shows this author in superb command of a claustrophobic thriller that will likely be read in one sitting. The central character of Jane springs to life from the opening pages and the bucolic-yet-horrifying setting is vividly presented. Surely The Last Thing to Burn will be snapped up for a movie version.