The Other Hand

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

My writing tutor used this as an example of a literary style in class one day, and as she loved it I decided to read it, and bought it for my Kindle. Looking at the reviews on Amazon, people seem to be fairly evenly split across all 5 stars.

I'd give it 5 stars. I loved it.

It's the story of an African girl, Little Bee, who has come to England as an asylum seeker, trying to escape the men from an oil company in Nigeria who are trying to kill her because of what she has witnessed. And an English woman, Sarah, who once met Little Bee in extraordinary circumstances, back in Nigeria (can't say what as it would be a spoiler) and who becomes her only hope of refuge in the UK.

There are novels with a great plot which stops you putting them down, and novels which are so well-crafted you savour every sentence. This novel, for me,  falls into both those categories. I highly recommend it.