PUBLISHED BY HODDER & STOUGHTON ON 14th APRIL 2022
Molly lives a quiet, contained life in London. Naturally risk-averse, she gains comfort from security and structure. Every day is the same.
Her identical twin Katie is her exact opposite: gregarious and spontaneous. They used to be inseparable until Katie moved to New York a year ago. Molly still speaks to her daily without fail.
But when Molly learns that Katie has died suddenly in New York, she is thrown into unfamiliar territory. Katie is part of her DNA. As terrifying as it is, she must go there and find out what happened. As she tracks her twin’s last movements, cracks begin to emerge. Nothing is what it seems. And a web of deceit is closing around her.
Delivering the same intensity of pace and storytelling that made THE LAST THING TO BURN a word-of-mouth sensation, FIRST BORN will surprise, shock and enthral.
Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands and had lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying Law at the LSE and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden where he built a house in a boggy clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes. His debut novel, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball’s Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker Prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. Red Snow was published in January 2019 and won Best Independent Voice at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards, 2019. Black River was shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Award in 2021. The Last Thing to Burn was released to widespread acclaim in January 2021.
This was excellent and enjoyable to read, it’s not until you get to the end that you actually realise what has happened. Superbly written by Will Dean who has a great talent and I can understand why he has won prizes and been nominated. I don’t really want to say too much as really don’t want to give anything away, all I will say is that you should read this story!
