My Review
The Last Thing to Burn is one of those books that gets under your skin and lingers after you finish the last page. It’s a book that doesn’t feel like fiction. It’s heavy. Emotional. And very, very real. It’s a story that deals with dark, possibly triggering themes, and it’s written in a way that feels very obviously wrong and unsafe while also trying to convince the reader that this is…just how things are now. 

 What seems normal at first glance—a man named Lenn, a woman named Jane, and a farm in England—is hiding a disturbing secret just beneath the surface. Lenn isn’t just a farmer. Jane isn’t just his companion. And the farm? Oh, the farm… It’s like a character in its own right, honestly. An accomplice to Lenn and his…way of life. 

 The synopsis does explain the overall plot, but there’s so much more to it than what’s hinted at. And I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s a book that made me angry. Like, seriously angry. Filled with the rage of a thousand white-hot suns. There were a few times I had to close the book, set it down, and pace around the room because I was so stressed. 

 Near the end, there’s a twist that happens that I wasn’t expecting but shouldn’t have been surprised by. It lends the last 50 or so pages an intensity that just stressed me out even more. I flew through those final pages, and the moment I finished—the moment I closed the book and processed that final page—I was breathless (and breathing hard, if that makes sense) and started crying. It was an overwhelming relief, honestly, and even though I felt silly for reacting in such a way to a fictional story, the depressing truth is, this is probably someone’s real life, somewhere out there in the world. And that’s the scariest thing of all. 

 Lenn? A monster of the worst kind. Jane? A desperate woman doing what she can to survive. The isolated farm? Endless. Flat. Suffocating. 

 I’ve read horrific true crime novels. I’ve read gory horror and splatterpunk. But this… it affected me more than any other book I can remember in a long time. It’s the mundanity. The normalcy. The…realness. It’s not an easy read, but it is a book worth reading.  

If you love:

☑️ Dark psychological thrillers
☑️ Claustrophobic, isolated settings
☑️ Survival stories
☑️ Heroines fighting against impossible circumstances
☑️ Truly despicable villains
☑️ Emotional horror
☑️ Stories about control, captivity, and resilience
☑️ Slow-building dread
☑️ High-stakes final acts
☑️ Twists that push the tension even higher
☑️ Horror that's frighteningly close to reality
☑️ Books that make you furious, anxious, and desperate for someone to survive...

...then you might want to pick up The Last Thing to Burn. Just be warned: sometimes the most terrifying monsters are the ones who don't look like monsters at all.