Books For Keeps
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Articles
  • Past Issues
  • Latest Issue
  • Authors and Artists
  • Latest News
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
May 1, 2010/in Fiction 14+ Secondary/Adult /by Angie Hill
BfK Rating:
BfK 182 May 2010
Reviewer: Geoff Fox
ISBN: 978-1906427139
Price: £6.99
Publisher: Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noonGuaranteed packagingNo quibbles returns
Genre: Fiction
Age Range: 14+ Secondary/Adult
Length: 320pp
Buy the Book

Stolen

Author: Lucy Christopher

For almost all of her 300+ pages, Christopher has just two characters (and a feral camel) to work with, in a setting which is many a mile from the nearest human habitation. As the novel’s subtitle – ‘a letter to my captor’ – reflects, the viewpoint is solely that of one of these characters, so the thoughts and motives of the taciturn second character have largely to be inferred by both narrator and reader. Christopher has set herself challenges which, for me, she partially meets.

Gemma is in Bangkok Airport, en route to Vietnam with her self-absorbed parents (art gallery curator mother and stockbroker father). She’s escaped to a coffee shop, where she meets a youngish, strangely attractive man. That’s when she is kidnapped. Through a blur of drugs, she is aware of other flights and airports, but recovers full awareness only in the blazing heat of the Australian outback. As the story unfolds, we are asked to believe that her captor, Ty, ‘chose’ Gemma years ago, when first he saw her in her London suburban environment. She is to be Eve to his Adam, remote from human contact while he creates a piece of art as a homage to the Eden of the desert. Ty is no rapist. He is gentle and considerate, but he is also damaged; unable to see why Gemma would not want to share his outback idyll. He has stacked up food supplies for several months, has piped water from a cluster of nearby rocks, has an old car and petrol supplies – he catches the camel with Gemma’s assistance to provide supplementary transport. In London, he stalked her so closely that he was on hand to ward off the advances of a boy she knew from school. He lived, he says, in a local park she frequented, earning a few pounds as a gardener; for serious money to enable him to return periodically to Australia to prepare their home, he engaged in serious thieving.

We are asked to take all of this as literal fact; sadly, belief is sometimes stretched beyond the plausible. The lack of incident makes for a slow pace which you could argue is needed to reflect the growth of a relationship. The back cover blurb perhaps gives too much away (‘he expected me to love him’); readers may well be intrigued by the notion of the captured falling in love with the captor (doctors diagnose the case as Stockholm Syndrome). The insistent narrative question may override scepticism – just how will the captivity be resolved? This uneven first novel has undoubted strengths, and it will be interesting to discover where Lucy Christopher turns next.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png 0 0 Angie Hill http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png Angie Hill2010-05-01 00:00:122022-03-05 11:46:46Stolen

Search for a specific review

Author Search

Search







Generic filters




Filter by Member Types


Book Author

Download BfK Issue Bfk 272 May 2025
Skip to an Issue:

About Us

Launched in 1980, we’ve reviewed hundreds of new children’s books each year and published articles on every aspect of writing for children.

Read More

Follow Us

Latest News

Effervescent, scintillating, riveting!’ Collection of ‘colossal’ word poems wins the CLiPPA

June 20, 2025

Winners of the 2025 Carnegie Medals announced

June 19, 2025

Inclusive Books for Children book-gifting scheme expands again

June 18, 2025

Contact Us

Books for Keeps,
30 Winton Avenue,
London,
N11 2AT

Telephone: 0780 789 3369

ISSN: 0143-909X (this is our International Standard Serial Number).

© Copyright 2025 - Books For Keeps | Proudly Built by Lemongrass Media - Web Design Buckinghamshire
Drawing With Light The Raven Mysteries: Book 3: Lunatics and Luck
Scroll to top