3 out of 5 stars
In this Britain, the Equals control everything, wealth, politics, land and their power over the other 99% is absolute. Regardless of who you are you owe them 10 years service as a slave. As the saying goes, do those years when you’re old, and you’ll never get through them. Do them young, and you’ll never get over them. It is the Hadley’s time to do their 10 years slavedays and they have fortunately been offered positions at the estate of the Jardines.
All except Luke that is, at the last minute they find out that he is being sent to Millmoor, a tough industrial city that very few survive. Luke settles in as best he can, but when he comes across Abi he discovers a whole new underground network of people that are doing their best to help those in the slave town and the source of some of that help is from an unexpected quarter.
The rest of the family have is relatively easy compared to Luke, but they are still subject to the whims of the family and the power play that is going on within. There are winds of change beginning to blow through the society though, the age-old spell of silence and quiet that have kept the secrets within the elite have been broken and the techniques of suppression are being eroded.
It was an enjoyable read of a fairly horrifying vision of a dystopian Britain with the feudal system of slavery still happening. It is fast paced too, I raced through each chapter and read the entire book on a ferry journey. Liked it enough to read the rest in the series.
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