It’s been ten years since the Junta have held a control over Terreno. Alejandro Juron has just been released from the infamous prison ‘The Last Supper’. Before the dictatorship took control, Alejandro was the guitarist for Victor Pérez, a famous and popular folk singer/poet. The world has changed a lot in the years since Alejandro was in prison and it seems like the Junta’s control over the people of Terreno is starting to slip. Alejandro gets mixed up with a small group of rebels and has to decide whether to leave the country or join the resistance.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s not like anything I’ve ever read before, in the way that it feels so real. The characters are full of depth and complicated with their flaws on show. I was fully invested by the end of reading chapter one and couldn’t wait to see where the story would go. By the time I was reaching the end, I genuinely didn’t want it to be over. It’s rare that happens for me, that I’m so invested I just want to find out what happens next, even after the final page.

Alejandro is tortured by his past, the time he spent in prison and even from before then. His story is told slowly throughout the book, slowly unravelling itself so you get a great understanding of who he is and why he is making the choices he does. A lot of the characters have secrets in their past that aren’t revealed straight away and will have you gripped while you slowly learn about them and uncover the story.

The book itself seems to fly by. Whenever I picked it up, I would read a few pages, and before I realised I would have read 50 pages or more. It’s so easy to read and get into the flow of. The story is fascinating and dark. It’s full of shocking moments and at points does get very brutal. It’s never exploitative or feels too difficult to read, but there are some dark moments.

This is the first book I’ve read from Bob Van Laerhoven, but it won’t be the last. I couldn’t recommend this enough. It’s a dark story, and it captures you from start to finish. The characters feel real, which I think is the best thing a book can do.