Marlen Suyapa Bodden - Wedding Gift

This was a bestseller self published  on Amazon in the US. As a result it  was bought and published in print. We were lucky enough to get proofs to read through the Reading Agency.
This is a brilliant plot, a plot that wants you to keep reading but is spoiled by lack of good editing and advice.
The author is a leading black lawyer and she knows her stuff, being involved in the prevention of modern slavery.
The only trouble is that her style of writing reads a little like a legal report. The novel lacks description, which in some ways is good in that the reader is left to fill in the atmosphere and surrounding with their own imagination but I feel with a really good editor this could have been addressed before going to print. many of us are not aware of what the deep south in the US is like and would have welcomed some description.
However I am sure it will be in her next novel and this book is certainly good enough for there to be more.
It will make a good reading group novel as there is so much in it that unless you were an expert on slavery you would not know. It is absolutely appalling how slaves were treated in the US and a sobering reminder to us all that it still goes on around the world now.