Review for Dan Thompson’s Here Lies Love

Here Lies Love by Dan Thompson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dan Thompson’s Here Lies Love is a compelling and dark piece of dystopic fiction about a young girl sold into sexual slavery by her father. Life is hard as people eek out a meager living after the sun has died. The plotting is fast paced with gorgeous detailed settings.

He deals with Abbey’s paranoia and post traumatic stress in a realistic way.

I have only one minor complaint. Abbey seems a bit too naive for what has happened to her–especially when we find out why Dad sold her. I don’t want to go into details about this, because I don’t want to give a spoiler.

She grew up in the world, but she doesn’t seem to understand the way the world works. Now I could deal with that she is naive, except she has a fantastic vocabulary. Now she was educated somewhat by her grandmother, but words during her point of view chapters like egress (rather than exit, escape, or whatever) seem out of character for a naive seventeen year old who is trying to escape her captor. And when I saw certain words, I thought, huh? However Thompson is an English author, not an American author, so perhaps egress is more commonly used in the UK, then it is in America.

Overall, terrific novel.

I also read and enjoyed Thompson’sThe Caseworker’s Memoirs which is a completely different genre, but also quite good.

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