Belle - Lesley Pearse

It's 1910, and young Belle has grown up in a brothel run by her mother but she has led a sheltered and innocent life until one night changes everything. After being in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessing the murder of one of the girls at the hands of a brutal client, she is abducted and sold into prostitution abroad. Terrified and alone, Belle wonders if she will ever be able to return home and escape the sex trade.

Right from the very start, this book is dark. From my brief synopsis, you can tell that it covers some grim subjects. Belle has grown up surrounded by prostitution but is surprisingly naive about what is really involved. That is, until she's snatched from the street and forced into this world herself at just fifteen into her new role of satisfying the desires of men who are often much older. Her experiences are not pretty and it's an uncomfortable read at times. Always at the back of Belle's mind is the hope that she can ultimately get together enough money to return home but there are so many twists and turns along the way and it's not nearly as easy as she had originally hoped. As is typical of Lesley Pearse's heroines, Belle is a strong female.

Throughout the book, the author does a fantastic job of drawing you into Belle's story and the sordid world in which she now finds herself. It's obvious that a lot of research has been done to capture each location in such detail and create some realistic and larger-than-life characters. I was gripped throughout and finished the book in 2 days, which is very unlike me at the moment as I've been very much dipping in and out of books for the last few months. Although it's a fairly long book it doesn't feel like any of the content is there just for the sake of it and as it's a fast-paced plot, it doesn't feel as long as it actually is.

If you've read my last review of a Lesley Pearse book, you'll know that I was quite disappointed with that one on the whole and what it was trying to but this is a much more typical example of her work and shows her at her best.

Browsing the reviews on Amazon I was quite surprised to see some low ratings and people saying that the book is not in the slightest bit believable. It's telling (in my opinion) that these same people admit that they didn't finish the book as the things that they are pointing to are actually quite understandable. For example, they have pointed to Belle's naivety about the goings on in the brothel but it makes sense when you know about her mother's background and what she was trying to protect her from. Belle's lack of attempts to escape are also explained at various points in the book - the people behind these child trafficking rings were violent men who thought nothing of permanently silencing anyone who crossed them and as Belle knew far too much about their 'work', she would almost definitely have been tracked down and dealt with and it really wouldn't have been as easy as climbing out a window and running off! These men were horrific pieces of work who made their money selling young girls and through crime and corruption, after all.

All in all, I found this to be a fantastic read but as I've already discussed, it's not a particularly pleasant one and may be too dark and gritty for some people.

Summary: Abducted and sold into prostitution but can Belle escape her nightmare?