It took me a little while to get into this book, but once I did, it was magical. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I pretty much only bought it because it was the Waterstones book of the year last year, and so I assumed it must be good. It also helped that it was included in the Richard and Judy book club offer at WH Smith so it was cheap too!

There were parts about the book which I would have changed, some places just felt a bit slow, and I found it hard to warm to Nella as a lead character. I would have preferred if Marin was the lead character, she seemed to have a lot more spunk, but I can see why the book had to be this way.

I’m not going to go into details on the story, as I don’t want to give away any spoilers to such a lovely book, but there were many surprises waiting in store for poor Nella, and the author was very good at keeping you guessing about what was going to happen next. And when she decided to shock you, boy did she shock you!

The book was full of beautiful quotes, but my favourite was this one:

Freedom is a glorious thing. Free yourself. The bars on your cage are of your own making.

It’s just such a lovely sentiment, we can do anything we want to in life, we’re just holding ourselves back.

I absolutely can’t believe that this was Burton’s first novel, it was just so mature and well written. I can’t wait to see what she does next!