![]() A lot of novels starting with an opener like this would burn out, that is not the case with The Natural Way of Things. The confusion and fear at the start is palpable and rather explosive. Soon they are taken to another room, where they initially think they will be raped or killed, to have their heads shaved and join a further eight women, all dressed the same and shaven, who too have become captives to a pair of men. Well, as much as anyone can panic when they are groggy from clearly having been drugged. When Verla and Yolanda find themselves waking up in a strange unknown room, both strangers to each other, dressed in old fashioned uniforms their first instinct is that they are dreaming, then when the realise they are not they panic. She can do nothing to resist it, cannot understand or question. The drug has dissolved adrenaline so completely it almost seems surprising to be here, with a stranger, in a strange room, wearing this bizarre olden-day costume. But she is cotton-headed, too slow for that. ![]() She understands the fear is the only thing now that could conceivably save her from what is to come. The floorboards glisten like honey in the sun. ![]() Allen & Unwin, 2015, paperback, fiction, 316 pages, kindly sent by the lovely Anna who I am forever thankful for ![]()
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