The Push The Last Thing To Burn

Will Dean

Ashley Audrain

Michael Joseph, £12.99 When heavily pregnant Blythe goes into labour, her birth plan of deep breathing and positive mantras is swept aside by a tidal wave of fear and fury during a traumatic delivery.

As she recovers after the birth, it becomes clear her old life has gone for ever.

Blythe, who had a difficult relationship with her own mother, struggles to bond with daughter Violet.

But what starts as detachment deteriorates into mutual suspicion and loathing.

And she becomes convinced something is wrong with Violet – with devastating consequences.

Audrain’s twisted tale takes post-partum anxiety and detachment and ratchets it up into a chilling horror story.

There is an intensity to the narration that sometimes slips into melodrama and the ending won’t please everyone. But this is a compelling, compulsively readable thriller that never lets up and will keep you guessing right to the very last page. MG

Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99 Jane lives with her husband Lenn. Except he isn’t her husband. And she isn’t called Jane. Her real name is Thanh Dao and she is trapped thousands of miles away from her family with nobody to help her escape.

The Last Thing To Burn has been touted as Misery meets Room – and it certainly shares the claustrophobic character of both novels.

Living in a cottage on a deserted moor, Thanh Dao’s every move is watched and controlled by Lenn. Any time she steps out of line, she is punished in ways designed to strip her of any sense of identity she has left.

You’ll be rooting for Thanh Dao every step of the way but the other characters are thinly drawn, especially Lenn.

At its heart, this is a novel about human trafficking, and the horror of this hidden world is clearly depicted. However the violence – and there is a lot of it – is brutal and feels gratuitously detailed at times, to the point where it overshadows the gripping plot.